Light Underneath
by VIII of XIII
Summary: Roxas was just Sora's amnesiac younger brother. Axel was just the guy who came in through the bedroom window. Next life, American comic book style AU... no high school.
1. Chapter 1

**Title: **Light Underneath  
**Genre: **Kingdom Hearts, general/angst/romance, next life/AU  
**Pairing: **Roxas/Axel (background Riku/Sora)  
**Rating:** PG-13  
**Word Count:** 42,054  
**Summary:** Roxas was just the amnesiac younger brother of the Big Fucking Hero. Axel was just the guy who came in through the bedroom window.

--

He came in through the bedroom window; he'd thought about the bathroom window, of course, but it was too small. He was skinny, but not _that_ skinny. He knew he'd picked the right window, there was no way he could've been wrong, but there was still that bit of fear in the back of his mind that he might've been sorely mistaken somehow, even though he'd checked and double-checked, and that he was going to appear in the wrong bedroom as a result.

That would be very bad. He gave himself about a fifty percent chance of making it out of there in that case, maybe a bit better depending on any mercy that might have factored in, but even if he did he'd have blown his chance, and he might never get one again. He wondered what he'd do in that case. Self-destruct was always an option.

But of course he wasn't wrong.

--

When Roxas woke up, his eyes flew open but he couldn't move and couldn't speak, much less scream. At first he thought it was a nightmare, or maybe sleep paralysis, but then his eyes focused and even in the dark he could clearly see and feel that he was being physically restrained. A gloved hand covered his mouth, creating an airtight seal and forcing him to gasp for air through his nose, and his arms were being pinned to his sides and his hips in turn pinned to the mattress by the legs of a figure in a jacket and hood that hid all his features – except, Roxas noted in the cool moonlight that slowly began to bring more detail into focus, for a rather delicate jawline, mouth, and nose. Totally androgynous.

The fact that he couldn't scream didn't stop him from trying, but the punctuated, muffled sound and increased air pressure only caused the stranger – attacker, captor, abductor? – to tighten their hand on his mouth, forcing his head further back into his pillows. The mattress shifted as the stranger leaned forward; Roxas's eyes widened further in another sudden rush of terror, his heart beating even faster and harder in a renewed attempt to escape his ribcage, but then all that happened was the penetration of a voice through the rushing of blood in his ears.

"I'm not going to hurt you," the stranger said. Male, Roxas thought automatically, and probably not much older than himself. "Even if you scream. But if you do, you're coming out that window with me and we're having this conversation somewhere else. You gonna scream?"

Roxas glanced over and realized that there was indeed a soft breeze coming through the open window at the side of his bed near the foot of it, blowing the curtains slightly. He turned his head as much as he was allowed, trying to get a look at the stranger's face. The other man likewise turned, and Roxas could just make out a glint of green as his eyes caught the dim light. He took a few deep breaths through his nose as he stared into the stranger's eyes, and then he nodded.

They were both silent for a moment, and then the other man said, "I know you better than that, Hype. I'm gonna let go of you, and you're gonna sock me in the face, aren't you? And _then_ you're gonna yell, and if I try to get up you'll kick me in the groin. Because you're a nice enough person to go for the face first."

Roxas's brain had been trying to grasp the fact that he'd just been called by something that was distinctly not his name – and the shiver of déjà vu it sent down his spine – when he realized that the exact course of action that'd popped into his mind had just been accurately described by this maniac.

"I don't think I thought this through enough," the stranger said, and he sat up again. Roxas could see that he was cocking his head slightly under that hood, and he had a feeling that he was being scrutinized. "You're too smart to be trusted." Now that his heart was going back to a pace that was at least somewhat reasonable and his breathing was becoming steadier, albeit still heavy, Roxas could hear the other man release a long sigh – not so much annoyed or upset, but rather pensive.

He couldn't help but wonder what the hell kind of shitty criminal this guy was. Not that he'd really done that much that was illegal yet, aside from breaking and entering. Something in the back of his mind pointed out that the window wasn't even broken, so it was technically just _entering_. Finally the guy seemed to make up his mind.

"All right, I'm leaving," he said as he reached into the pocket of his jacket with the hand that wasn't still muffling Roxas. He held up something that looked like a blank white card in the darkness, and Roxas thought he could see his lips quirk back. Then suddenly the stranger moved and those lips were next to his ear once more. "If you want to speak to me again, you won't mention this to your brother. I'm _dead _serious about that." And suddenly he was gone; Roxas heard a rustling near the window, but by the time he regained his bearings he was left with nothing but an empty room and the card in his lap. It turned out to be, when he sat up, turned on his bedside lamp, and flipped it over, a photograph.

His heart stopped.

--

Roxas didn't get much rest that night, and he must have looked it; the first thing out of Sora's mouth when he sat down at the kitchen table the next morning, yawning and blinking blearily at the crowded technicolor back of a box of sugary cereal, was, "Hey, you okay? Did you sleep all right?"

Admittedly, Roxas had spent a long time considering whether or not to mention the events of the previous night to his brother. Of course, the stranger had told him explicitly not to, but Roxas was hardly inclined to listen to the request-threat-command of the sort of person who climbed in windows and sat on people in the dead of night. He was almost _more_ inclined to tell Sora because of it, just to be contrary.

On the other hand, when the man in the black jacket said that he wouldn't be speaking to Roxas again if he talked about it, he believed him. Not that it mattered much to him whether or not he ever saw the freak again – he'd actually prefer not to – but because of the picture the guy had left, he bit his tongue. "I'm fine," he mumbled.

Roxas spent more and more time over the next few days staring at the photograph; he kept it tucked into the folder with all his syllabi at school, and at home he took it out and slipped it under his pillow, as though if he left it in those places it would leak into his schoolwork and seep into his sleeping mind and maybe he'd be able to remember when it was taken.

There was a sizeable blank spot in Roxas's life, a bit more than a year that led up to two months ago, the time when he'd lost that portion of his memory. It was a year of college – his first year, actually. Despite having no recollection of it, to the point of having to take all those classes over again this year, Roxas had had it reconstructed quite vividly for him by Naminé, his best friend since childhood who went to the same university. Everything outside of that had been recounted to him by Sora and Riku, the people he lived with.

It had been a normal year. He had not been to San Francisco in that year. In fact, he had never been to San Francisco in his life. It had to be fake, this picture of him in clothes he'd never seen on a bridge he'd never crossed, smiling for a photographer he probably didn't know and who probably didn't exist. It _had_ to have been faked. Though _how_... he hadn't the faintest.

And on the back, scrawled along one edge in spidery handwriting with a light pencil, was a little note he almost hadn't noticed. _Got it memorized?_

--

He slept terribly for the next couple nights, waking up repeatedly at all hours, expecting the stranger to be there. Bizarre, indefinable feelings were lingering from his dreams, flowing away like water from an overturned bucket as soon as Roxas jolted back into consciousness. It was the same sort of terrible sleep a person gets when they have the biggest job interview of their life first thing in the morning and they can't stop worrying that they're going to oversleep and miss it. At first Roxas had been sure that if he 

never saw the stranger again, it'd be too soon. He didn't need that kind of shit messing up his life. But by the third day, he had to admit to himself that he was waiting. He needed to know.

When he awoke with a start for the second time on the third night, the first thing his eyes focused on was the red glow of the clock on the nightstand. 1:38. He let out a long breath and spent a long moment quelling the rapid beating of his heart. After he'd calmed down a bit, he rolled over and nearly jumped out of his skin.

For all the waiting he'd done for the return of the man in the black jacket that week, he certainly still wasn't prepared for it now. The window was open again, and there he was sitting on the sill, one leg pulled up under him at an almost impossible angle and the other sitting on the footboard in front of him. He was dressed similarly, but this time it was a hoodie instead of a jacket and a pair of jeans. Now that he was at a bit of a distance, Roxas could see that he was clearly tall and almost painfully skinny, and he was watching him, his eyes once again obscured by his hood.

"You," Roxas practically growled, sitting up and reaching over to turn on the lamp. The soft incandescent light threw the room and the stranger into sudden sharp relief, and where his heart had been pounding before, now it skipped a beat and drove the air from his lungs.

He knew that face for an instant – _knew_ it, not in the way one knows the face of a celebrity, or a coworker, or the guy you see on the bus every morning. He was familiar with every detail of that face, and something was off about it, but it was still the same. And then he realized that he'd never seen this man before in his life, not since three nights ago.

A thin, lopsided smile tugged at the stranger's lips. "Hello, Roxas," he said, his voice practically a purr. He reached up and pulled the hood of his sweatshirt off to reveal close-cropped, messy black hair. That took Roxas even more off-guard than finding the man in his room again had in the first place, and he had no idea why. There was nothing unusual about it. "You didn't tell, did you?"

It wasn't a question; it was a statement with a request for unnecessary confirmation. Roxas narrowed his eyes at the smug attitude. "No," he muttered. "I didn't."

That slight smile broke into a broad grin and the stranger said, "I knew you wouldn't. You're too curious about your past to blow it, huh?"

Roxas lowered his eyelids and pursed his lips, going silent for a moment. "How about you tell me who you are first?" he asked at last.

"I'm your past," the stranger said matter-of-factly, looking almost proud of himself for the perceived fact.

Roxas rolled his eyes slightly; if he'd known what an irritating idiot this guy was the first time they'd met, he would hardly have been able to be frightened of him at all. Amazing how quickly things changed.

The stranger seemed to take note of Roxas's reaction and added, voice laced with amusement, "Well, not the _only_ part of your past; just the most _important_ part." He suddenly swung both legs to the other side of the footboard and pushed himself off the windowsill to begin perambulating around the small room, examining Roxas's stuff with an air of curiosity mixed with disdain.

"I don't even know you, so quit flattering yourself," Roxas grumbled, pushing the blankets off of himself and moving to sit on the edge of the bed. He felt sort of ridiculous sitting there in his t-shirt and drawstring pants, but he reminded himself that he belonged here and the stranger decidedly did not. "Now what the hell is your name?"

The stranger had stopped, staring at the books on the shelves above his desk, as soon as Roxas said he didn't know him. He was silent, his posture stiff; he was facing half away from Roxas, and now he turned his head to give him a rather dark, sidelong look. "My name is Axel," he said slowly, his voice suddenly lower. "You know me, and I know you. You're either going to remember knowing me, or you're going to get to know me again, Roxas."

By the time Axel was finished talking, Roxas had distinct chills running down his spine, though he couldn't pinpoint why. It started with the name, and was intensified by the absolute surety with which Axel set himself as a fixture in Roxas's life. It was a confidence that couldn't be argued with, and it seemed to muffle Roxas's voice, which was very quiet as he murmured, "Where did you get that picture?"

As an afterthought, he reached over and slipped it out from under his pillow. When he turned back, it was obvious that Axel had been watching the motion, and the other man's expression had become significantly softer and more unguarded. He stared at the picture in Roxas's hand and then dropped his head and shook it, laughing softly. "I took it, dumbass." The word was so non-confrontational, so gently teasing, that it came off the same way as if someone like Sora or Naminé had said it. "I can't believe you forgot the best business trip we ever had."

Roxas furrowed his eyebrows and looked down at the picture; it certainly didn't look very businesslike. "Business trip? I've never even worked anywhere more complicated than McDonald's."

"We went on five of them," Axel said firmly. "That was the best one because it was where the least amount of business got done, if you know what I mean."

"I don't know what you mean." It was only the truth, and an obvious one, but it made Axel wince anyway, and for some reason Roxas felt guilty about rubbing his own amnesia in. Even though, of course, that wasn't what he was doing, and it shouldn't have been Axel's problem at all. But apparently it was.

"Who _are_ you?" Roxas asked, the underlying implication being _what are you to me?_

Axel stared at him for a minute, trying to hide a frown and not doing a particularly good job. He took a deep breath and let it out slowly, then avoided the question with, "You really don't remember anything, do you?"

He sounded so dismal, at such a contrast to the sunny disposition he'd carried through the window with him, that Roxas felt even worse. It almost came out as an excuse when he said, "I've _tried_."

"How did you lose your memory?" Axel asked suddenly. Roxas was a bit taken aback by the question. Axel obviously knew him, or was very good at faking it. And he probably knew about Sora, if he was worried about Sora finding out he was here, which meant that he was either closer to Roxas than he'd let on or – more likely, despite how young he might have seemed – was involved in some government agency. It was the only thing that made sense, with him knowing both Roxas and his brother. Was it possible that Roxas had been more involved with Sora's work during his missing year than he'd been told?

Either way, Axel should by all rights have known what happened to Roxas. It wasn't like it was that long ago. But Roxas found himself reciting the story anyway. "I happened to be near an explosion two months ago, the concussive force of which slammed me into a wall. I was in a coma for a week, and when I woke up I'd forgotten nearly all of the last fourteen months or so." By now he sounded rather sick of telling the tale; something so traumatic had become rather tiresome and routine.

"An explosion," Axel said flatly. "That's unusual. One that had to do with your brother and the Organization? If _you_ were with him, something carried out while he was off-duty, I guess?"

Roxas bristled slightly. "How the hell do you know this shit?"

"Lucky guess," Axel said lightly. "Would've been a _really_ lucky guess on the Organization's part, trying to assassinate the Keyblade outside of business hours. Considering they don't know who he is."

That threw Roxas for such a loop he ended up a little lightheaded. It shouldn't have, he told himself; this Axel guy was just some nutcase who'd dropped through his window once or twice, and there was no reason to believe him, except for the fact that he _did_. Roxas stood up, marching across the room and glaring up at Axel, searching his face before meeting his eyes. "What do you know about me?"

Axel's demeanor had sobered significantly since he'd arrived; but now that little smirk came back, though it was a little bit more strained than it had been before. He considered Roxas with a slight tilt of his head and finally said, "Not everything."

Roxas was about to throw back a sarcastic remark about stating the painfully fucking obvious, but then there was a soft warmth surrounding his fingers, and he realized that it was Axel taking and lifting his hand. Actually having to grasp this fact by looking down at the action, he didn't even think not to let Axel spread that hand out palm up and press a thin strip of stiff paper into it face-down. Axel's hands lingered around Roxas's for a moment as he added, "More than you do, though."

How Axel could be in one place and then entirely another in such a short amount of time Roxas had no idea. It only took a couple of seconds for Axel to be out his window and off into the night, or at least onto and presumably down the fire escape – although he was more silent about it than Roxas would have expected. Roxas didn't even gather himself fast enough to call after him, and after he was gone he flipped over the picture that Axel had left this time.

It was, as Roxas should've guessed by the shape and glossy feel of the other side against his skin, a strip of film from one of those picture booths of the sort found in malls and arcades. There were three pictures, tinted blue from the lousy camera and lighting, again of Roxas. But this time Axel was there with him. The first was a relatively normal picture, except that Roxas had his hand on the side of Axel's face and was trying to push him out of the frame as he grinned broadly. In the second, Axel had that same arm by the wrist and was biting Roxas's shoulder – and apparently it tickled. In the third, Roxas had regained the upper hand and had a good grip on Axel's hair with the hand that Axel wasn't restraining.

And that was the thing: Axel's hair. It had been bright red at that point, and long – very long, if the messy, folded-over ponytail he had it pulled up in was any indication. He also had two black marks on his cheeks under his eyes, though the exact shape couldn't be made out in the small photographs. But it was definitely Axel, and he wasn't hard to identify. In fact, he was _more_ Axel in these photos than he had been in this bedroom, inexplicably enough. Roxas still didn't remember him, but with the pictures something clicked.

The bottom edge of the picture strip was slightly uneven, the thin white border just a little asymmetrical. Roxas ran his thumb along it, knowing that these things usually came in fours.

Even the missing pieces of his life were missing pieces.

--

Roxas thought Sora's work was more or less ridiculous on a lot of levels, and work was what Roxas considered it even though the term generally implied things like applications and job descriptions and salaries. What Sora technically did was _volunteer_ work, and the fact that he was basically subsidized as an independent agent by the federal government was almost incidental.

Not that Sora had actually volunteered for what he did. The Keyblade had chosen him when he was fourteen; he'd never asked to use it, or to become known by its name. It was just something he had to 

do, or at least felt that he had to do. Roxas feared for Sora's life deep down inside, knowing that when he called the weapon and it appeared in whatever form and accompanied by whichever alien-looking armor obscured and protected his brother's features, he became little more than a servant of the weapon, an extension of the blade itself.

The Keyblade had practically made itself a member of their tiny family unit, the same way Riku had when he met Sora through the FBI. Roxas found them both irritating and rather ridiculous. Riku because he was the one who made sure Sora's work and their lives stayed classified in his stupid holier-than-thou self-assured idiom, and the Keyblade because it was a giant fucking key. Efficacy aside, who the hell thought _that_ had been a good idea?

The Keyblade made it difficult to really get to know his brother. Riku had experience in this, Riku knew best, and Riku had pretty much divided up Sora's existence and stamped half of it top secret. Sora claimed that he would have told Roxas everything, except that it would have worried Roxas, and he wanted his little brother to have some semblance of normalcy. Roxas didn't care; he didn't pay attention to the headlines and he mostly ignored the fact that his brother was a Big Fucking Hero. Roxas went about his routine. Roxas studied for his classes and focused on his own future. Roxas didn't pry. But he assumed that if he did, he'd get answers.

It wasn't that simple.

"Sora, why hasn't the Organization tried to kill you again?"

Sora fumbled and nearly dropped his fork, losing the ravioli that had been halfway to his mouth. "I… what?" The look on his face was a bit shocked, and he'd gone almost imperceptibly paler. But then a grin broke across his face, that same old expression that was so very Sora, the one that hadn't changed a bit since they were kids. "What, are you trying to get rid of me? I've already willed all my game consoles to Riku, Rox, so that's not gonna work."

Fixing Sora with an unamused look across the dinner table, Roxas muttered, "I'm serious. They tried to blow you up two months ago, and they haven't made a move since."

"They infiltrated the Pentagon at the beginning of the month," Sora said almost nonchalantly. He took a bite of his food and then added, "They're still trying to recover that records room from the fire damage."

"I meant a move against _you_. If they found out who you are, why would they try and fail once and then give up?"

Sora faltered slightly, but Riku stepped in almost immediately. "Sora has a lot of identities, Roxas. They learned one of the fakes, and that fake no longer exists. They have no means of finding him beyond canvassing the entire city and outlying areas for people who look like him. And with the circumstances of the attack and the nature of the intelligence, they didn't even get a very good look at him."

"He doesn't always need you to answer for him, Riku," Roxas said darkly, but Sora shook his head.

"He knows about that technical stuff better than I do. I don't just keep him around for the sex, you know." Another one of those huge grins that somehow made Sora's words line up with his innocent air.

Apparently that was that. That wasn't enough.

--

In the nine weeks since the incident that took Roxas's memory, not one thing had jogged his memory of the time that he'd lost. The doctors said that it was likely that he'd never get those memories back, and that he shouldn't worry about it, that he was lucky he didn't lose significantly more. Roxas supposed this was true, but he'd never once believed that that year was necessarily gone for good. There was always the chance that he'd wake up one morning and have it back, or that he'd start to regain portions of it slowly.

Maybe he'd start remembering the first time he'd been through the classes he was taking now while sitting in a boring lecture one day. Maybe he'd remember some of the time he'd spent with Naminé last year when they hung out on the weekends now. Maybe one day he'd have a conversation with Sora that brought back some other conversation he'd had with Sora six, eight, ten months ago. He'd been waiting for something, anything, to return the lost bits of his past. Nothing had worked.

Axel was the first sense of déjà vu he'd gotten. Axel was the only person who'd handed him a real, solid relic of that year, something more substantial than clothes he didn't remember buying or books he didn't remember reading, none of which looked familiar. Axel was the one thing that gave him pause for no apparent reason.

The guy was annoying and troublesome, presumptive and pushy. But mostly he was evocative. He made Roxas nervous, almost painfully tense – his stomach turned over when he thought about him, or when he thought about the fact that he was going to come back. He hadn't said as much, but he hadn't had to. It was obvious that Roxas hadn't seen the last of Axel.

And in the meantime, he was seeing more than enough of him when he went to sleep. Both the picture of Roxas alone and the ones with Axel sat under his pillow now, and the stupid superstitious attempt at memory retrieval seemed to be working, at least a little. The first picture had dredged up seemingly random emotions in the middle of the night. The second ones brought dreams.

Roxas couldn't remember the dreams, not much of them anyway, but from the state he woke up in it was obvious the sort of dreams they were. Details were what stuck, what remained after the initial waking period in which the dreams – memories? – slipped out of his sleepy, overheated mind's grasp. 

The feel of red hair between his fingers, the smell and taste of smoke unlike any he'd ever encountered, the soft texture of scars on fingers that weren't his and across palpable ribs and sharply delineated hips.

His mind could've been making it all up. A significant portion of him hoped it was, because if it wasn't this situation had just become even more fucked up than it had been already. But he could barely go a half hour without wondering when Axel was going to come back.

The days were warm, but the nights were cool. He put an extra blanket on his bed and slept with the window open.

--

It took four nights for Axel to return this time. He came through the window at about half past midnight. Roxas was awake when he got there; it was the weekend and he didn't have to worry about getting enough rest to function. He was sitting at his computer staring blankly at page two of a five page paper he was supposed to have done by Tuesday, eyes focused on a blank white space just below and to the right of the last thing he had written.

The music from his computer speakers was turned down fairly low, but he didn't hear his visitor come in. Instead, he became abruptly aware of the fact that he was being watched, and he twisted around in his seat to find Axel looking at him from the bed. He was sitting stretched out across it, his back resting against the wall next to the window and hands stuck in the pockets of his black track jacket emblazoned with the number eight. An almost imperceptible smile quirked his lips.

His appearance shouldn't have thrown Roxas like it did. He'd seen him less than a week ago looking just like this. But he'd spent the time since then thinking of the Axel from the pictures, the fiery redhead with the distinctive harlequin tattoos, someone who didn't look remotely as inconspicuous as the man who'd commandeered his mattress now.

"You could at least say something when you get here," Roxas said dryly, pushing his seat back from his desk and angling it a bit so that he could speak to Axel more easily.

Axel grinned. "You looked like you were concentrating. Didn't wanna interrupt the thought process."

Roxas didn't bother to say that he hadn't been concentrating at all, that Axel had somehow managed to drive him to practically perpetual distraction. There was too much else that was important right now, too much that he needed to discuss, to ask. He barely knew where to start, but he went with the first thing that sprang to mind. "How do you know me, Axel?"

There was no hesitation on Axel's part the way there had been on Sora's; in fact, he seemed to be expecting exactly that question. "I used to work for the Defense Department," he said simply. Roxas had expected something like that, but the fact that Axel knew his brother meant that he must've had pretty 

high clearance, which in turn probably meant that he was quite a bit older than he looked. He wondered what a guy like Axel – a guy who _looked_ like Axel, much less – was doing with the Defense Department. But he also knew that people who knew about Sora were invariably not allowed to breathe a word about their work, past or present.

"And that's how you met us," Roxas said pensively, nodding slightly. He realized that he'd begun gnawing at his lip nervously and made himself stop. "So where've you been for the past two months, and why the hell am I not allowed to say anything about you? Why do you crawl through my window in the middle of the night?"

"You have to've realized that there're things that Sora isn't telling you about your lost year," Axel said, scooting forward on the bed to sit on the edge and rest his elbows on his knees. "I'm not prepared to cover everything right now, and I can't dump it all on you at once. You'd hate me for it."

Roxas sighed through his nose and looked off at the ceiling. It occurred to him to try to _make_ Axel tell him everything now, but that would never work since Axel was the one holding every last card here. "Answer my question."

"Your brother and I have had a lot of disagreements," Axel said rather quietly. "He doesn't like me. When you relocated after you lost your memory, I was never told where you were going. I'm not supposed to know."

"You spent two months trying to track me down?" Roxas asked in disbelief. It wasn't surprising that it would take someone two months to find him, even someone with high-level ties to the government; it was surprising that someone would _bother_ spending two months to find _him_, a person of little to no consequence.

"Of course," Axel replied with a slightly self-satisfied air.

"And why did you?" Roxas asked, feeling his stomach twist in anticipation of the answer, feeling like he already knew what it was going to be, even if he couldn't consciously say what.

He was wrong. "Because you're my best friend," Axel said simply. Roxas furrowed his eyebrows; something in him wasn't happy with that answer, the same part of him that was sure those dreams were more than dreams. Another part of him was telling him just to let it go, that it didn't matter, that it was stupid to push the issue right now.

His hands were resting on the arms of his chairs, and now his fingers were twitching slightly; his whole body was itching to get up, to go over there. "Is that it?" he asked, his voice tight. Axel's eyes widened, and he swallowed, but he hesitated too long; Roxas was on his feet and marching the short distance over to the bed. Axel sat up, surprised, and leaned back, but Roxas grabbed hold of his jacket and shirt and yanked them up.

There it was, the burn scar, the long band of taut, pink-tinted skin that ran from his ribs down to his hip and below the waist of his low-slung jeans. Roxas stopped and stared at it, and it was exactly what he'd expected. "_Roxas_!" Axel hissed in an attempt not to raise his voice, his tone more surprised than upset. Roxas glanced up at him with darkened eyes and gave his clothes another yank, revealing a similar scar running from Axel's shoulder down across the left side of his chest.

Axel attempted to take hold of Roxas's shoulders and push him away enough to regain his balance and bearings, but Roxas just grabbed one of his hands by the wrist and tugged the sleeve up, revealing hands and forearms that were covered in a variety of similar scars, ones that had been of differing degrees and healed with varying amounts of success.

"Roxas, what're you doing?" Axel asked quietly but insistently.

"I was right," Roxas breathed. "I _know you_."

"Everyone knows about the burns, Rox," Axel said, voice faltering slightly.

"Do they all know about the one on the inside of your right thigh?"

The taller man froze in place, paling a little bit. His voice got a bit higher and nearly cracked with a throat that had suddenly gone dry as he murmured, "You remember?"

"I remember details. Some details." Roxas moved back, letting Axel sit up a bit. His visitor seemed to be trying to gather his thoughts, figure out something to say, but Roxas was already leaning over to the bedside table. There was a glass of water he'd left on it, and he dipped his fingers into the lukewarm liquid.

"What are you—?"

Before Axel could finish the question, Roxas was rubbing his fingers across his cheeks just under his eyes. His mouth snapped shut, and in a second Roxas had smeared away the makeup that covered Axel's tattoos with his wet fingertips. A second after that he was wiping away that moisture with the heel of his hand. He stared down at Axel for a long moment, and Axel stared right back, and then he murmured, "Why did you change yourself?"

"So that I could come see you," Axel breathed. "I didn't want to be caught and lose my chance."

"Your chance to do what?"

Axel looked slightly hurt by the question. "To help you remember," he said, and then quickly added, "There are things I have to explain to you, more than just _me_…"

"Why don't you _start_ with you?" Roxas asked, voice going a little dry. "You're the part that's _here_."

"I'm not important!" Axel insisted, pushing Roxas out of the way – albeit gently – so that he could get up and begin pacing a bit, arms crossed over his chest. He reached up to scratch at his hair, faltering halfway there as though he still wasn't used to having so little of it.

"Funny, you said you were the _most_ important part last time," Roxas countered smoothly.

Axel glanced up and fixed Roxas with narrowed eyes. "I was being a jerk, okay? I'm nobody; I'm just here for you." His countenance looked thoroughly shaken, and it struck Roxas that while for him, arguing with Axel was somehow _familiar_, almost _comforting_, for Axel it seemed to be genuinely agitating. But Roxas pushed ahead; he was going to find out what Axel had to tell him, and he was going to deal with first things first, and the first thing now was getting Axel to come clean about himself so that then he could come clean about everything else.

"What were we, Axel?" Roxas got up and walked over to the taller man, having to tilt his head back to look up at him. Axel steadfastly avoided his gaze for a long moment, staring off into space, and when he angled his eyes back down to meet Roxas's, the blond was surprised to find that the taller man looked like he was on the verge of having to blink back tears.

"Fine," he muttered. Roxas was surprised to see him reach into his back pocket, pulling out his wallet as he said, "We were lovers. You felt something for me then, but you don't feel it now, right? Maybe you could again someday, maybe it was just a fluke, I don't know. I'll settle for being your friend now. Hell, I'll settle for just being useful to you."

And that feeling was back, the one like he'd just been punched in the gut. Roxas reached up to his chest as though trying to confirm that it really was his heart beating that hard and that fast, and he said, his voice almost a whisper, "Axel, don't…" Don't what? Say that? Well, why the hell not? What did Roxas have to counter that? What was he supposed to tell the person he only remembered in fevered dreams and inconsequential semantics? How was he supposed to fix that?

"Don't lie," Axel said firmly. He'd opened his wallet, staring at it for a moment before slipping two things out of it – a small piece of paper from one of the card slots and a larger, folded piece out of the billfold. "I'm not here for that; I'm just here to help you, okay?" He closed the wallet and put it back into his pocket, holding those two papers between his fingers and staring at them silently. Finally he muttered, "I wasn't gonna give you these. Wasn't gonna give you anything today, actually. But here."

Roxas held out his hand, seeing his fingers trembling a bit and regarding the movement in a rather detached sort of way. Axel pressed the papers into his palm, face-down again. He held them there as he said, "The others were gifts; you can do whatever you want with those. But these are mine, and I'm going to want them back." He turned and was at the window again when Roxas interrupted him.

"Is there some way I can contact you? Give me a phone number, an email..."

Axel paused, hands braced on the window frame as he turned and said, "There's no way to contact me. I'm sorry."

Confusion at that, of course, confusion and maybe a little hurt. But Roxas ignored that and said, his voice's strength starting to give out, "My brother and Riku will be out of town three nights from now."

Axel's posture stiffened again in the middle of leaning down to crawl out the window. He paused, then murmured, "I'll try."

As soon as Axel was gone, Roxas remembered that he was still holding the papers that the other man had given to him. He turned them over – the one was folded in quarters, so there was nothing on the other side, but the second was, as its size and shape had suggested, the last part of the photo strip. Axel was still gripping Roxas's wrist and Roxas was still holding Axel's hair tightly, but one of them had pulled the other into a deep kiss, or perhaps they'd both pulled each other into it. At the very least, they seemed to be equally – and entirely – focused on it.

Roxas took the couple of steps over to the bed and slumped down on it. He'd never experienced such a surreal feeling; there was a big difference between being told he'd done something during the time he'd forgotten and having that something handed to him. And there was a further big difference between going on a trip to San Francisco or taking pictures in an overpriced photo booth and… and… whatever had happened with Axel.

He nearly dropped the picture as he held it between two shaky fingers and used the rest to open up the folded stationery and find his own unmistakable handwriting staring up at him, the messy manuscript that made everything he wrote look like something passed between classmates in high school chemistry.

_Ax,_

_I know you told me not to say anything. I know this isn't what we're supposed to do, and I know we have to be discreet. I know it'd just make things harder to say it. So I won't say anything._

_But I love you anyway. Pretend I tell you every day._

_Roxas_

He didn't really know what the note was talking about, and he didn't remember what it was like being in love, or even the fact that he had been at one point. But he began crying despite all that, or maybe because of it, a sob suddenly escaping him at the same time as hot tears began spilling out between his 

eyelids. He soon realized that he was getting the note wet, so he quickly folded it back up and stuffed it under his pillow along with the pictures, then curled up and pulled the blanket over his head so that he could bury his face in that same pillow until he fell asleep.


	2. Chapter 2

The dreams changed again. The first had only left residual emotions upon waking. The ones after that had left only physicalities, on more than one level. That night and the two after, they became difficult to even bear; the actions combined with the feelings, the two halves of the whole mixing together and becoming difficult to distinguish. He was waking up in the middle of the night now with the ache of his body matched by the pain in his heart, and it hurt too much for him to even be indignant over the fact that his conscious mind still was mostly in the dark on the whole matter.

By the second day, he had to admit that he missed Axel, inexplicably and terribly.

The third day, Sora and Riku were gone. Roxas couldn't remember whether this was for business or pleasure; he never really paid much attention when either of them was discussing those things. The important thing about this sort of day was that it was going to be either pizza or the microwave at dinner time.

Roxas didn't eat dinner; he was nauseous from nerves. There was the fear that Axel wouldn't show up, and on top of that there was the fear that he wouldn't have any idea what to say to him if he did. He came home from class in the afternoon, relieved to finally have a reprieve from Naminé's prodding about why he'd been so tired all week. He sat on the couch and stared at the blank TV screen for fifteen minutes – that was how long it took him to realize that he didn't want to watch TV, much less grab the remote and turn it on.

He went into the bedroom and changed his clothes, and then he changed them again, and again. When he looked at the bed and realized that he now had a small mountain of clothing that he'd moved from the closet to the mattress, he rolled his eyes and went over to start moving it back – changing his clothes twice more on the return trip. In the end he went from jeans and a t-shirt to slightly less faded jeans and a slightly more fitted t-shirt.

He examined this change in the mirror, and then one hand came up to begin brushing through his hair. Soon the other followed, and within a minute a valiant attempt to tame his eternal bedhead – or at least to get it to kind of give the chaos a unified sort of direction to go in – was underway. It was also useless. He dropped his hands to his sides after a while and gave himself a dry look.

What the fuck was he _doing_? He was acting like a high school kid on prom night, and _why_? Roxas stomped over to his bed and threw himself face-down on it, groaning loudly. Why did he feel like he suddenly had to impress the maniac who crept his way into his life every few nights? Because he had been-was-might fall in love with him? Because he was waking up every night dreaming of-imagining-remembering things about him he could hardly _think_ about without blushing?

Maybe at one point they'd been Roxas and Axel. But now Roxas was just Roxas, and Axel was the guy who climbed through the bedroom window. And Roxas didn't know if any part of him was even remotely sure of what he wanted to do with that. He sighed heavily and squeezed his eyes shut, slipping his fingers under his pillow to find the paper and photos, pulling out the note. He didn't open it; he 

must've spent hours staring at the thing in the past few days, going over and over the words, trying his best to remember why he wrote it, or even simply the act of writing it, of handing it to Axel, _anything_. It hadn't worked, and now he just let it rest on the pillow next to him, focusing on the feel of the paper under his fingertips.

When he came to, the sun through the window had been replaced by the soft glow of his desk lamp, and although his hand was in the same spot, the note was gone. The clock read a quarter to eleven and he looked around to see Axel sitting near the foot of his bed, holding the unfolded paper and staring at it; as best as could be told from this angle, his expression was blank and his eyes weren't even moving to read the words.

"Axel?" he murmured, and then it struck him that Axel was really sitting there again, and he sat up quickly, suddenly nervous over nothing at all. "Axel, I… you came…"

"I've always come for you," Axel muttered, not looking up, and with the lack of humor in his voice it took far longer than it should have for that comment to really sink into Roxas's mind and make its double meaning known. Roxas was sure he should've been offended – that Axel would say something like that to him when he knew he was a near stranger to Roxas, that Axel would take their past that Roxas couldn't remember so lightly – but hearing it… it wasn't meant that way at all. It was dry and offhand and it was just _Axel_.

But that didn't stop Roxas from narrowing his eyes and mumbling, "Shut up, Ax."

Axel didn't respond; he was too busy gnawing on his lip and staring at the note to even look up at Roxas. Finally he said, voice low and quiet, "Did you _cry_ on this?"

A heated blush crept from Roxas's ears down his cheeks as he looked at the paper and remembered that yes, there were in fact several circular spots where the paper had become a little more wrinkled and washed-out, and a few more where the moisture had come into contact with the ink and given the black lines little purple coronas. "I… didn't mean to," he managed after a moment.

"It's fine," Axel told him. He slowly folded the paper back up, shifting his weight so that he could pull his wallet out of his back pocket and slip the note back into it. Roxas actually opened his mouth to protest before he remembered that Axel had said he wanted it back, and that he had no claim to it anyway. It had been a gift, and it might be the only one like it Axel ever got from Roxas. The paper was permanently, subtly bent to fit perfectly around the credit cards and seams of exactly that spot in Axel's billfold. It belonged to Axel.

The mementos of that part of Roxas's life, the memories of it, the feelings it caused, none of those were Roxas's; they'd been left to the man who switched between and blurred the line separating an impish benefactor and a gaunt specter that appeared in his room during the night. Axel was holding everything, 

and the only things that were coming back to Roxas were direct results of the short conversations Axel allowed him and the little glimpses he left with him in the meanwhile.

It wasn't fair. It was completely _un_fair on every conceivable level. Yes, Axel was hurting, but Roxas was hurting and couldn't even get a clear picture of _why_. Anything Axel held concerning him they'd given each other; it was as much Roxas's as it was Axel's. Roxas had spent days trying to figure out what he wanted out of Axel, and now he knew. "I want my memories back."

Axel had been sitting with his elbows on his knees and head hanging, but now he looked up, then sat back to get a decent view of Roxas. For the first time, he hadn't covered his tattoos, and that seemed to fix his eyes, to put that piece back into place. He didn't need the little soft black teardrops to draw attention to them – the almost unnatural green hue did that – but they belonged there. "I'm gonna do my best," he said. "I don't know how, but I'll figure out a way. And I won't give up."

Roxas shook his head, crawling forward and settling on his knees next to Axel. The other man drew a sharp breath as Roxas's hands suddenly came up to his face, fingers ghosting over his cheekbones on their way up before coming to rest on his forehead. Axel seemed unable to do anything but stare as Roxas pushed back the slightly curled dark hair that framed his face to find the red growing out at the roots, maybe half a centimeter of bright orange hidden under the inches of artificial black. "No, you have a way. The more you give, the more I remember. The more I see of you, the more things come together."

"Seriously?" Axel asked, as though he half expected Roxas to admit that he was only messing with him. Roxas sat back and brushed Axel's bangs back down in an almost tender motion.

"I have dreams that we had to be quiet," he said matter-of-factly, "and we hated it. And there was one where we got kicked out of a hotel because I was screaming too loud."

At first, Axel seemed to have no idea of what to say or do. Those green eyes widened, and he must have been holding his breath because after a moment he had to let one out to draw in a deep one. Suddenly he twisted his body on the bed so that he could throw his arms around Roxas and pull him into a tight hug. "You remember that?" he whispered, voice rather heavy with pent-up emotion.

Arms coming up to wrap around Axel in return, Roxas nodded fervently. "I don't know the how or the why or anything, but I remember that. I remember doing it, and I remember how I felt."

Axel drew back, now wearing a broad smile that reached his whole face – by far the most genuine, least mitigated one he'd given since coming here. "I can't believe you remember that hotel. We got kicked out, and then we had to go to another one, and we got kicked out of that one too. We ended up going way over budget and had to go back and give the boss some story about you getting pickpocketed on a bus."

Every single word that Axel said brought back a flood of feelings and scattered images. A skeevy motel with mirrors on the ceiling, running through a city he couldn't identify in the middle of the night trying to find somewhere cheap to hunker down, standing in an airport terminal picking out the indispensable items from his wallet and putting them in Axel's before tossing the rest of it into a trash bin. And feeling elated through it all because it had been completely worth it to make up for all those weeks of stifling himself and sneaking around at all hours.

None of it made sense. There was no context for anything, and Roxas really couldn't care less. Axel had pulled back again, bringing his hands up to Roxas's neck and letting his thumbs trace along the line of his jaw in a motion that coaxed a faster pace out of Roxas's heart. Then the hands were gone and Axel's smile was fading. Apparently he'd reminded himself that even if Roxas was beginning to remember, he was still missing almost all of it, still had no real comprehension. And he still didn't know Axel the way Axel knew him.

"I, um… I'll bring you some more things to jog your memory," Axel mumbled. "I'm glad it's working. You have no idea how glad I am, Rox." He scratched the back of his head and looked down at his shoes as he asked, "Is there anything that brings things back better than others? I guess obviously you liked the note…. You didn't write me a lot of them, but I saved every—"

"You can bring me all the notes and pictures you want," Roxas interrupted, "but that's not what does it. I've spent hours staring at those pictures and at that note, but I still don't remember going to San Francisco or kissing you in a photo booth or writing that to you. But when you're here, when you talk, it comes back. It's not things that make me remember; it's _you_."

Roxas moved forward, taking hold of the front of Axel's t-shirt and using it to gain leverage and pull him closer. "We made those memories together; you've got them now, and I want them back. Give them to me." He was vaguely aware of the strange cocktail of hormones and adrenaline that was being pumped into his bloodstream and coursing through him. He was reasonably aware of how close he was getting to Axel, of the fact that the other man's breath was palpable across his lips. He was _intensely_ aware of the way Axel's eyes moved over his face, from his eyes down to his lips, of the way his chest rose and fell sharply with each breath, of the way his lips parted after he swallowed.

"Roxas," he breathed. It sounded like he wanted to add something more, but there were no words forthcoming.

"Axel." Roxas was moving forward even more, keeping his hands balled in the taller man's shirt as though if he didn't hold him forcibly his erstwhile lover would bolt. Finally frustrated with the limitations imposed by sitting next to him, he simply crawled into Axel's lap. "You've missed me, haven't you? 'Cause I've been missing you whether I knew it or not."

Axel's voice was becoming both shakier and increasingly taut as he whispered, "Roxas, you don't have to…"

Roxas finally unclenched his hands and brought them up to Axel's face and neck, fingertips roaming over the skin, each touch bringing back feelings and flashes of imagery, the particular curves of his cheeks and jaw, the almost imperceptible raising of the skin over his tattoos. It all came back so fast it hardly had a chance to seem new again. "Do you not want it?"

Closing his eyes and letting out a long breath, Axel muttered, "That's kind of a loaded question." He cracked his eyes open again, his hands tentatively finding their way up to rest on Roxas's hips. "It was different before. I mean, it's the same for me, but you…"

"Don't love you anymore?" Roxas said bluntly, and part of him regretted putting it like that as he watched Axel's reaction – the other man winced as though he'd been physically slapped, turning his head away slightly at the same time, like he could somehow avoid the brunt of the blow by doing so.

"Yeah."

"No." Roxas grabbed hold of one of Axel's hands and pressed it to his own chest. "Everything's in here. You're bringing it out. I'm still the same person who wrote you that note, so make me remember. Make me fall in love with you again."

Axel drew a long, shuddery breath as his fingers tightened slightly in the sides of Roxas's shirt. "You're making this very hard for me, Roxas."

"Apparently not hard enough, Axel," Roxas quipped, hoping that maybe he could prod him back into a slightly more congenial mood.

It seemed to work, but not for the reason he'd thought. Axel's eyes shot up to his and he asked, "You remember that?"

Confused, Roxas blinked at him. "Remember…?" Now that he thought of it, something was beginning to seep into the back of his mind, but it wasn't congealing fast enough. Axel had already pushed him off of himself, and Roxas nearly squeaked as he was suddenly shoved down onto his back and pinned there with Axel's weight.

"That's exactly what you said when you seduced me the first time," Axel murmured, his voice practically a purr. "I was worried that you'd wake up in the morning and regret losing it to me."

"But I didn't regret it," Roxas breathed, having to make that assumption but knowing that it was right. His hands were making their way under Axel's shirt, fingertips tracing across the small of his back, and Axel was obviously trying not to arch into his touch.

"No, you didn't. You picked the bathroom lock and interrupted my shower."

Roxas suddenly burst out laughing, startling Axel. "I remember the look on your face," he explained momentarily, and Axel couldn't hold back a somewhat sheepish grin.

"You've always surprised me," he admitted, and he'd barely gotten the last word out when Roxas grabbed him and yanked him down into an insistent, almost desperate kiss.

When the blond finally let go and let him take a breath, he whispered, "I want to remember all the other looks I put on your face."

Axel seemed to give in entirely at that point, bringing his lips back down to Roxas's and kissing him deeply. Pretty soon he was rolling onto his back and pulling Roxas over on top of him; he wrapped one leg around the smaller boy's thighs and rocked up against him. Roxas hissed as he realized that Axel was getting to be in pretty much the same condition that he was getting to be in himself, and he pulled back just long enough to yank off the other man's shirt, followed quickly by his own.

_Roxas wasn't the sort to notice looks, but it was hard not to notice that redhead in the corner's – whether you found them pleasing or not. Pleasing was definitely what Roxas found them, but he'd be the last to admit or even show it, not if he could help it. He stared down at the paper in his hand, pretending to read it although he really wasn't; he was trying to ignore the fact that said redhead was looking at him. That alone was taking up most of his processing power._

_Finally he folded the paper back up and marched to the other side of the room to take a seat, still adamantly not looking at the redhead – or any of the other people in the room for that matter. He pulled out his DS and opened it up, but a moment later and before the startup screen had even passed long fingers were flipping it closed again. He looked up to find the redhead in front of him, bending down and giving him a look that was an odd mixture of smug and curious._

"_We're gonna be spending a lot of time together, so you might as well start interacting with me instead of that GameBoy."_

"_DS."_

"_Okay, you've introduced your video game thingy. My name's Axel, A-X-E-L, not like on a car, got it memorized? That's the two of us, now it's your turn."_

_Soon, when Roxas would think about Axel, he would think about how quick-witted he was, how he could talk about anything and everything, and how even when he was being an idiot he still managed to make it kind of endearing. Roxas was glad that he'd made a friend here._

Roxas's hands were the first to go below the beltline; at first he just shifted his hips out of the way so that he could trail the fingers of his right hand down Axel's side, tracing over scars in little patterns that 

came naturally, before finding the front of Axel's jeans. His hand slipped over it, and he rocked the heel of it firmly against the bulge there; Axel broke the kiss they were in the middle of and let out a moan that seemed only a thin disguise for a whimper. A moment later he'd yanked open his fly and taken hold of Roxas's hand to practically force it to bypass his pants and boxers. Roxas teased him by making it difficult for him to do so, but was really all too happy to oblige.

_Roxas hadn't really liked anyone since high school, when he'd started going to all the varsity basketball games to watch Hayner, the team captain. He really couldn't care less about sports, except in the capacity that Hayner cared, and Roxas didn't like to see him upset. And then, of course, Roxas had found out that Hayner was carrying on with the captain of his school's rival team, and that particular dream flew out the window and was crushed by an oncoming semi when it landed on the street._

_Whenever Axel walked into their room after hours and climbed into his bunk, Roxas felt the same way he'd felt every time Hayner walked into fourth period Spanish – except that Axel was better-looking, and Axel paid attention to him, and Axel's mother was from Barcelona so he was actually good at Spanish._

_It was difficult to tell whether it was a blessing or a curse, that Axel and Roxas were the two youngest of them all and thus were assigned roommates. On the one hand, Roxas got to spend a lot of time around him. On the other hand, Roxas got to spend a lot of time around him. It was both good and bad, and Roxas had both the one and the other hand free to contemplate the situation because while he needed to get intimate with them more than ever now, there was absolutely no way he could. Especially not with the shared bathroom._

_When Roxas thought about Axel, he thought about how very green his eyes were, and about the way his laughter echoed off the walls of their small living space whenever he thought he'd just teased Roxas in some particularly clever way, and about that stupid sexy dance he would do whenever that stupid song was on the radio. Roxas was pretty sure he wasn't allowed to have a crush on Axel._

Despite the fact that Roxas was pretty much losing his virginity – mentally, though what was virginity _but_ a mental construct? – for the second time, it didn't feel like such at all; everything was nerve-wracking before he started, and then as soon as he started doing it each movement became totally practiced, natural. Axel protested feebly when Roxas began kissing his way from his sternum to his navel, pointing out that this should be about Roxas and not Axel and ohhhmyfuckinggod. Roxas noted, for the second time in his life, that his own mouth was a very effective tool for getting Axel to close his.

_Roxas tightened his fingers in Axel's shirt, pulling him closer – which was hard, considering Roxas was already sitting on him. Axel brought his hands up to Roxas's shoulders, positioning them like he was going to push the smaller man off of him, if not entirely off the mattress, but failing to actually do so._

"_Roxas," he hissed. "Why are you doing this? Why now?"_

"_Because I've lost everything but you," Roxas whispered, his voice taking on a slight air of desperation. "It's all gone except for what I feel when you walk into a room. Don't tell me you feel nothing for me. I've seen you watching me, Axel. I'm not stupid…"_

_Axel squeezed his eyes shut and sighed. "And what if it's just lust?" By body language alone it was impossible to tell the difference. Since Roxas had shoved him onto the bed and straddled him to hold him down, his breathing had gotten quite a bit more labored, and Roxas could feel his hands trembling almost imperceptibly._

"_There are plenty of better-looking guys than me here," Roxas said, his voice soft and matter-of-fact._

_The taller man shook his head quickly. "No, there aren't. There really aren't."_

"_And you think so because you feel something for me," the blond insisted, shaking Axel slightly. "Axel, please… give me a chance. I can't ignore this now. Tell me you feel the same way. Tell me you _feel_."_

_Shaky fingers made their way from Roxas's shoulders to the sides of his neck, tips tracing along the skin as Axel stared at his face, unable to keep his eyes from wandering over the lips that were in such close proximity. "He wouldn't like it," he whispered. "We have… things to worry about now. He'd think we'll lose our focus and our motivation."_

_A deep breath, and then Roxas leaned forward to brush his lips over the edge of Axel's ear as he asked, "Are you going to lose your focus and your motivation?"_

_A shuddery breath, and the answer came almost inaudibly. "You _are_ my focus and my motivation."_

_Soon, when Roxas would think about Axel, he'd think about the feel of their heartbeats pressed together when they were squeezed into the same small bed, and about looking up and finding green eyes staring at him from across the room, and about the way Axel would synch their watches to the wrong time and show up whenever the pretend chronology reached 8:13. Roxas had a million things to worry about, but none of that was as important as the fact that he was falling for Axel._

Axel finally got up the willpower to _demand_ that Roxas lie back and let him do some of the work, flipping him over and using his superior weight to pin him there until the coaxing of his fingers got the smaller man to admit that he had a bottle of lotion in his bedside drawer and all right, fine, he didn't _care_ who was top or bottom or dominant or submissive just please please _please_ do _something_. Axel decided to bottom from the top, and Roxas informed him that the verbal reminder of how much he used to like that was unnecessary as he nearly tore holes in the sheets with his nails.

_The sunset was just getting to the point where it wasn't uncomfortable to look at, and it was a great view from here of the oranges and reds fading to purple, breathtaking, really - but Roxas just kept staring at Axel. For his part, Axel was doing his best not to look at Roxas. He'd glance over occasionally, _

_but then train his eyes back on the horizon. He'd bought Roxas some odd blue ice cream from the Japanese market, and Roxas turned and watched the last of it dripping to the ground ten stories down as it melted in the evening heat. It was good to be out away from the others._

_Taking a deep breath, Roxas finally said, "Axel, I've been wanting to say something to you for… for a while now…"_

"_I've been wanting to say something to you, too," Axel interrupted, fixing his eyes on the horizon. "Maybe the same thing. One phrase, three words, eight letters? Fits us, huh?" Roxas was silent, rather confused, almost hurt but waiting to see where Axel was going with this. After a moment, the redhead turned to look at him, shifting his body and reaching out to press his right hand to Roxas's chest. It was gentle and warm through the thin cotton of Roxas's t-shirt. "If that's it, don't say it."_

_Roxas looked down at that hand, then back up at Axel with knit brows. "Why not?"_

"_What're we gonna do when we say it, Roxas? Leave here , run off together, forget what we're doing? We can't lose track of why we're here or we're in trouble, aren't we? Saying it'll make it normal and acceptable and… and we'll get too used to it. Other things'll start to seem okay. Let's pretend that we just sneak into each other's rooms at night because we just… because we're young guys, and we need that, that's all."  
_

_Roxas could feel a stinging at the back of his eyes, and he threw the ice cream away angrily down to the street below as he wiped the tears away roughly. "That's all," he muttered darkly._

"_Fuck no that's not all," Axel whispered, his voice suddenly right next to Roxas's ear as his long, thin arms wrapped around him from behind. "Just because you pretend doesn't mean you don't know better. Never, ever forget that you know better, Rox."_

_Following that, when Roxas thought about Axel he thought about the note he always saw tucked into his lover's wallet when he opened the billfold up to pay at the coffee shop, and about the soft undertones in his voice that slipped out sometimes even when he didn't want them to, and about lying in bed feeling Axel trace one phrase, three words, eight letters across the bare skin of his back. Roxas wasn't supposed to be in love with Axel, but it was okay._

When Axel tried to get up, Roxas pushed him down and kissed him soundly and said that Axel'd overdone it, and that he'd be right back. He returned with a warm washcloth and cleaned them both up, pushing Axel onto his front to make sure he did a thorough job, although Axel complained the entire time about being babied. They'd always complained at each other during and concerning sex – half-assed, useless arguments that meant nothing at all. This was normal, it was right.

"This was supposed to be about you," Axel muttered as Roxas threw the washcloth across the room into his laundry hamper. Axel's arms were wrapped around one of Roxas's fluffy down pillows and his head 

was resting on it; he was stretched out on his front and looking entirely at peace and relaxed – except for his expression. The visible half of it that wasn't buried in the pillow or hidden behind his upper arm was rather defiant. Roxas shook his head in mock disappointment, as though Axel were a child who'd just gotten a D on a spelling test.

"It was about me _remembering_," he said, leaning sideways so that he could prop his elbow on the other side of Axel's slim waist, his right hand free to run over Axel's back and massage the muscles there. "I remember," he murmured. "I don't... really understand what we were doing together. Obviously not what I was told I was doing last year, but… I do remember you. I remember meeting you, I remember living with you and never getting any sleep because you were in the bunk right below me, and I remember moving somewhere else and being with you…" He sighed slightly, but not unhappily at all.

Nearly of its own accord, his hand paused on Axel's back, and his index finger came down to begin tracing letters across the skin – eight of them, three words, one phrase. He heard Axel draw a sharp breath and saw him turn his face to bury it more fully in the pillow. He was probably too nervous to ask whether Roxas was trying to indicate that he remembered when Axel would do that to him, or that he remembered feeling what those words meant, or that he felt that way again now. A soft smile curved Roxas's lips. Axel probably would've been happy if he'd known the answer, but if he wasn't going to just _ask_…

He shifted his body so that he could bring his lips down to the small of Axel's back, and he found himself kissing his way up the other man's spine, starting at the very bottom and slowly moving up, each vertebra receiving a soft, heated pressing of his lips to skin cooled by sweat in the warm night breeze. When he reached the top, he continued onto his neck, and at last he reached the hairline and his eyes opened. That was when he saw the number.

He sat up immediately, his mind going temporarily blank as his eyes widened and his heart leapt into his throat. Axel immediately turned over, asking him something and then wincing and swearing, but Roxas processed none of it because suddenly his mind was being overloaded with imagery of every sort, not just visual. The feeling of a biting needle at the base of his skull, the constant itching of his forearm from repeated and scattered injections, the ache of his heart as he tried to figure out why his very soul was going numb.

_I don't understand, is this a side effect? Should we tell them? They don't seem very happy with us anymore, something's going wrong, I know it… Do we point it out? Mine are working, are yours? I'm getting the hang of it, I don't see what there is for them to be dissatisfied with, it's working so quickly, we're all improving, it's just that I can't figure out why I feel this way…_

_We're leaving, Roxas. You don't have time to get anything, we're going, we have to go now, all of us! Please, just come with me, let me explain later! I don't care what we can or can't feel, I'm still your friend, so trust me!_

Axel was sitting up now, gripping Roxas's shoulders tightly and shaking him a bit, trying to get his attention. "Rox, for fuck's sake, would you listen to me? Don't freak out on me, just listen!" Roxas's eyes slowly focused back on the older man's face, and his hands came up to his shoulders because if they didn't he might just fall over and off the bed, and one of them made its way up to the back of Axel's neck, fingertips probing just under the hairline for the little indelible inch-high identifying mark, the white ink VIII like a well-healed scar.

He could feel it, now that he knew exactly where it was. It was almost undetectable, the raising of the skin, but it was there, and as soon as he found it that hand flew to the back of his own neck, probing in the same spot until he felt the same sensation. And he couldn't see it, and there was no way he could trace it, but he knew it was almost exactly the same as Axel's, just move one of the lines of the V over a bit and you had it, XIII.

"Axel, what the hell happened to us?" he breathed weakly, and then his voice got a little stronger even as he began shaking helplessly and added, "What are we?"

His lover's hands were almost immediately on his arms, trying to steady him, pushing him down onto his back and smoothing his hair away from his face with thin fingers. Roxas let him, but the wide-eyed, utterly confused expression on his face remained, and he still clung to Axel like his life depended on keeping him there next to him. "I didn't wanna tell you this right now, Roxas."

Roxas shook his head frantically, trying to sit up again, but Axel held him down by leaning over him. He grabbed the blanket folded at the foot of Roxas's bed and tugged it over both of them. "I'll stay with you, don't worry, just relax," he murmured. He lay down with his head on Roxas's shoulder, his hands finding places to rest pressed between the small of Roxas's back and the mattress and on his side along his ribs, like the explanation Roxas was demanding was a simple bedtime story.

Wrapping his arms around Axel, twining his fingers in his hair, Roxas managed to make his voice sound at least superficially less strung-out. "Okay, just… just tell me."

"It looks like I'm gonna have to," Axel admitted. "I'll be honest, I didn't know how I was gonna break this to you. I guess I figured you'd be getting this back on your own, that I could just, like… give you some of your old stuff and maybe it'd come back to you, but… if I have to do it, all right. You'll have to listen.

"Do you remember when I said I used to work for the Defense Department? I know I made it sound like that was the reason I knew about your brother, but it's not. It is _true_, though. We both used to work for them, until about ten months ago. The first thing you can't remember doing is getting that job; Sora helped you get hired. There were twelve others – most of us were there because we applied for various other things and took tests and had diagnostics run and basically they put us on a hamster wheel until they figured out which ones they wanted. That would include me."

"_Roxas, huh?" The redhead dropped into the chair next to him now, reaching over and smoothly slipping the DS out of Roxas's fingers and dropping it into the blond's open backpack before he could protest._

_Rolling his eyes, Roxas added dryly, "R-O-X-A-S, like the city in the Philippines, got it memorized?"_

_That looked like it positively thrilled Axel. "You know, you're the first person ever to throw that back at me!" he exclaimed. "You'd think I'd get it all the time, but—"_

"_It's because you obviously have a fucking terrible memory," a voice came from Roxas's other side. Roxas turned to find a tiny blond woman – the only female in the room, he immediately noticed – staring at them both with crossed arms, lowered eyelids, and a cocked eyebrow. "He made me memorize his name forty-five minutes ago and _still_ thinks I'm called Larissa."_

"_Oh, don't get that way on me!" Axel said with an emphatically dismissive wave of one hand. "We're supposed to all be friends here, so let bygones be bygones, Arlene."_

_At that point another person cut in – a blond sitting facing away from Roxas in the waiting room had turned around in his seat and was looking a little worried. "I thought your name was Larxene!"_

"_It _is_ Larxene!" The girl's voice was like a sudden clap of thunder and the blond guy nearly squeaked._

"_The thing is, Lauren, that I really don't care what your name is. You see where I'm coming from, _Roxas_?"_

"You remember the paperwork we had to do?" Axel asked, sounding almost amused – but bitterly so. "There was like a fucking Tolstoy-sized stack of waivers and contracts and _that_ was before we even signed the _one_ that actually said we agreed to do the program. And they had to put us in those dormitories because we didn't actually have time to do them that day."

_Roxas was probably the only one in this group who'd never had any higher education, since from what he'd gathered the next youngest was Axel, and Axel was two years older and claimed that his reason for being there was that it was "better than going to class". He wondered if this was what it was like being in college –sitting up very late at night in a lounge with a bunch of other people doing a lot of very tedious and possibly unnecessary work._

_They could've breezed through it in about twenty minutes maybe if it had been a matter similar to, say, getting a library card or applying for a fixed-rate mortgage. But the thing was that the man in the uniform with all the stars and the chevrons and the field of little multicolored stripes – he certainly had a lot of rank, even if Roxas couldn't decode what the hell it was – had managed to drill into them that they had better fucking read these papers because there was a lot more on the line than late fees or foreclosure._

_The prose was a little bit… clunky. Roxas thought he was getting most of it, or at least he hoped he was getting most of it. Demyx – the one who'd been able to remember Larxene's name and who was himself one of the few names Roxas had learned and remembered – was having problems. He was sitting between someone whose face looked like it had been at the wrong end of a Bangalore torpedo and probably the scariest person Roxas had ever seen._

_Demyx obviously didn't think he was scary. "Xaldin," he said, poking him a bit with the blunt end of his pen. His voice was a whisper, probably since it was the only sound in the room besides the radiator in the corner. Xaldin (evidently) looked over at Demyx, and the blond said, "What's an affidavit?"_

_Xaldin's hand came up to tug one of his dreadlocks into a more acceptable position in his ponytail as he said, "It's what you're signing."_

_From the look on Demyx's face, that definition didn't help, but the man on the other side of him was leaning over the arms of their adjacent chairs and pointing at something on his sheet. "Dude. Social Security numbers only have nine digits."_

"_Then where did the other four come from?" Demyx asked, flailing a bit._

"_You tell us," came another voice – this one from Xaldin's other side as the man who'd introduced himself to Roxas and Axel as Luxord earlier came and sat down in that chair and settled his own stack of papers back into his lap. He gave them all a winning smile and said, "I've forgotten mine, as a matter of fact. Who wants to lend me one?"_

"_Do any of you have _any_ idea what the hell these things are even talking about, or are you just signing your names at the bottom of each one like a bunch of fucking lemmings?" That came from the corner of the room opposite Axel and Roxas, who by this point were simply watching the proceedings with the rapt interest of people who have nothing else to look at but legalese. The speaker had hair the color of cornflowers and was beautiful in the way that a garden full of said blooms would be on a spring afternoon in the seconds before a nuclear blast decimated the area for a radius of ten and a half miles._

_The one with the eyepatch didn't seem to notice or at least didn't seem to want to acknowledge anything but the pre-detonation period. "Hey, do _you_ know what any of it's talking about?" he asked defiantly as he twisted in his chair to raise an eyebrow at Pending Nuclear Meltdown._

"_No, and that's why I'm not going to—"_

_The conversation was interrupted by a voice like a lava flow – low, smooth, and beautiful, but possibly dangerous if you got too close. "The general gist of these," the owner said while still in the middle of filling something out with a pen that looked like it was designed for sub-orbital space flight, "is that we are signing over our own genetic codes as well as the right to alter and distribute thereof to the government and specifically the Department of Defense."_

_He put the pen down and looked up, removing his wireframe glasses and running a caramel-colored hand through hair that was obviously white well before its time. A slight smirk curved his lips and he added, "Within certain parameters, of course."_

_Pandemonium erupted as everyone made an effort to ask more questions at the same moment. Later they would find out that Xemnas wasn't actually a scientist – he was a lawyer._

"So we signed over our DNA," Roxas murmured.

"Yeah," Axel replied. "For the eventual fame, or the desire to be part of something historic, or because we were going to be set for life in exchange. I had student loans piling up, Xigbar had no job and nowhere else to go, Vexen said he'd never be able to look at his own lab equipment again knowing he passed up the chance…"

"And my brother who's always had his shit together in a way I never could gave me an opportunity, so I took it," Roxas muttered. "I wasn't even jealous of the attention. I just wanted that kind of direction."

"No bad reason to do it, really," Axel said lightly, lifting his head and leaning it on one of his hands to look down at Roxas. He shrugged his shoulder. "It was just as safe as they said it was gonna be."

"_I thought this was supposed to be _safe_," Roxas complained, batting Axel's hand away from his head where he could already see that the redhead was reaching up with the bandaged appendage to ruffle his hair. He grabbed onto his wrist – being careful to avoid the injured parts – and flipped his arm over, examining the dressing before beginning to remove the bandaging over some of the less serious areas._

"_Well, nothing's completely without risk," Axel pointed out. "That's why you have to wear those goggles, isn't it?"_

_Roxas grabbed some of the cream the doctors had given Axel and shook his head as he began applying it. "They should be having you wear something flame-retardant," he muttered._

"_I have been up until now, but then they deemed my control good enough that I didn't have to," Axel said, his voice doing nothing more than tightening a bit at the pain he was certainly feeling but would never admit to. "I would've been fine if I'd been expecting that backdraft. I don't understand physics and shit."_

"_If you don't understand physics, maybe they should've given fire to Vexen."_

"_Then I'd have frostbite instead of burns," Axel pointed out. "Not as sexy, I don't think."_

_When Roxas's eyes moved up to Axel's face, that broad grin was plastered across it, and immediately he shifted his gaze back down, concentrating on the task at hand to hide his blush and snorting derisively._

Roxas suddenly sat up, pushing Axel onto his back and reaching down to trace his scars again. "You did this to yourself!" he exclaimed, as though he'd just made some sort of discovery he wasn't entirely prepared to believe. "That's it! We… we were…"

"The most advanced weapons ever developed," Axel finished, the smirk he gave not _entirely_ mirthless. "Well, the prototypes, anyway." He raised a hand and snapped his fingers, producing a nearly blinding flare of fire whose light died before the blast of heat did. "Not the most sheer firepower in the world, pardon the pun, but more than a match for almost anyone, and unlike a semiautomatic we can think creatively."

"You were fire, and I was… oh, god."

_Axel slammed the door behind them – fat lot of good it was doing them being invisible if they kept making all this noise, Roxas thought irritably, and then any annoyance fled his mind as they both turned just in time to see security come around the corner._

_Security in this case being body armor, a semiautomatic rifle, and all sorts of gadgets and weapons that were probably on their roster but which they hadn't had time to even look at yet. The soldier had already realized that he couldn't see whoever was in here, and he must have been pretty well-trained for his unusual post because he was already reaching up to – if what Roxas had been over in contingency training was any indication – adjust his visual to infrared. Roxas didn't know how to control that part of the spectrum, or even if he ever could, and Axel would probably show up on it like a neon sign anyway._

_Roxas panicked, but the past two months of daily training jumped in and took over. Evasion necessary, non-lethal force desired, visibility or lack thereof compromised. He threw one hand out in front of them as he grabbed hold of Axel with the other. There was a small fraction of a second when for him and Axel the world went entirely dark. It was a precaution, since outside their little bubble the room had been filled with the visible spectrum of a nuclear blast._

_There was a scream, and that was what drove home to Roxas that he'd just done that in a real life situation with a real human being and shattered what little composure he had left. That scream was unadulterated pain and fear and Roxas could feel a sharp impact of shock that ruptured his entire being, and then he could feel the mental becoming physical. He was beginning to tremble, feeling his legs going a little weak as his mind tried to process and cope with what he'd just done._

_There was a tugging on his arm that stopped after a moment of non-responsiveness. "Roxas! For fuck's sake, Rox!" Axel seemed to realize what was happening, so he picked the smaller man up bodily and in a second was half-dragging him out of there._

"_Don't fucking flip out on me, Roxas," he growled, less out of anger than out of pure, generalized stress. Roxas could barely process a thing that was coming out of Axel's mouth. It was almost automatic at this point, though, to stay unseen. His most sophisticated, favorite use of his power, the one he'd hardly been able to keep from using for salacious purposes on several occasions. It was probably the only reason Axel was able to get them both out alive and relatively unharmed._

_Roxas had no idea how long they'd been running when Axel sat him down on the ground and crouched down next to him in a totally unfamiliar back alley in a totally unfamiliar place. As soon as he realized that he could relax, that did it – he grabbed Axel, wrapping his arms around his friend's neck and burying his face in his chest so that he could let out a long, hard scream and have it muffled by the fabric of the other man's sweatshirt._

_Then Axel's hands were on his arms and he was loosening Roxas's grip on him, at least enough to push him back and look him in the eyes. "Roxas, stop freaking out, please." From the strain more than evident in his voice, it was entirely possible that if Roxas did not stop freaking out, Axel would lose his own cool and they would end up with nowhere to go and lacking the mental composure to even come up with a plan._

_But all Roxas could do at the moment was blurt out, the words like a sob with no tears, "I… Axel, I _blinded_ someone! That was permanent, what I did! I could feel it, it was too much!"  
_

_"He would've killed you, Roxas!" Axel exclaimed._

"It was his job!"  


"_It was your _life_!"_

_No response came to that; Roxas just buried his face in both hands, and a moment later Axel's arms were around him, holding him tightly, fingertips gently rubbing his back. And these were some of the only circumstances possible, the back of Roxas's mind thought bitterly, in which he couldn't properly enjoy this. But he still calmed down much more quickly than he would have without Axel there – in that case he wondered if it would happen at all – and soon it was enough for the redhead to pull away a bit and reach into his pocket. He pulled out a scrap of paper and unfolded it. It was hastily and unevenly torn from a piece of blue lined paper, and the words on it were very messily scribbled. _5th + Clark 2 PM Tuesday.

"_Lexaeus gave this to me when he told me to get you out," Axel said. "I guess they'll pick us up there if they made it."_

"_We're meeting up with them?" Roxas asked softly, his voice hoarse and rather weak._

_Axel shrugged slightly. "Where else are we gonna go? We gotta figure out what happened, and they always said we were designed to work as a team…" He caught Roxas's eyes and said, "I can take you to your family if you want. You've just got a brother, right? If you think you can get him to leave the country—"_

"No." At the time, Axel didn't know it, but it was true he could go home and Sora would protect him, and Riku would protect Sora and thus Roxas in turn. Riku was a dick, but even Roxas had to admit that the shithead was madly in love with his brother. It was viable, but it wasn't an option. "We were designed to work as a team."

"Fuck," Roxas breathed, and then he dropped his head and buried it in Axel's neck, groaning quietly. "_Fuck_."

"I'm sorry, Rox," Axel whispered. "You remember now?"

"It's getting there, yeah," Roxas said, voice muffled against Axel's skin. He shifted his head a little bit to take a deep breath and said, "They were gonna get rid of us, weren't they?"

"Zex and Lex picked up the info on _why_ later, but yeah. We couldn't be controlled. You can't give someone that sort of power and not be able to get them to do exactly what you want; you give a weapon trajectory, not autonomy."

"It didn't work."

"Nope, the forced docility was a complete failure. The powers worked, better than they thought. Even the emotional brainwashing did some damage, maybe more on some of us than others. I don't know that it ever really took to you very well, or to me, for that matter…"

"When I came to you, that was our low point, wasn't it?" Roxas murmured.

"Yeah, it was," Axel said. "I haven't talked to the others about it. Demyx seems much happier now, Xigbar too, Saïx was always kind of a psychopath so it's hard to get a reading…" He trailed off, tracing his fingers over Roxas's back and brushing them through his hair. "I don't think it stuck with any of us; I think it's wearing off and no one will bring up the subject. Because we have to be strong and it's easier that way."

Roxas was silent for a moment, mulling over that and the fact that he was glad to hear it. "And that day when we left? I can't remember what you told me..."

Axel frowned, hesitating slightly, vaguely covering his obvious thought process by rubbing one of his eyes with his fingertip as though he were trying to get a speck of dirt out of it. Roxas was about to ask what the problem was when he finally spoke. "They made the mistake of trying to kill Vexen first. They switch up the cocktail they're giving us, don't hide the label on the bottle, and try to stick it in the arm of a borderline paranoid with a medical degree. Frankly, the doctors were asking for it."

Clarification was unnecessary; Roxas was pretty sure he now remembered what "it" had been said to be, and he didn't really want to dwell on the thought. The thought that Axel probably shouldn't have had that much trouble saying something that simple didn't leave his mind, but that certainly sounded right to him. He vaguely remembered being told the same thing after the fact.

"I'm still missing ten months," he mumbled. "It's making more sense, but not all of it…" Roxas could feel more than hear Axel sigh beneath him and he quickly added, "I don't need it now. You've given me enough tonight, _more_ than enough. Thank you, Ax."

"Just returning what's yours," Axel murmured.

"Stay here tonight," Roxas said, his voice suddenly louder and more authoritative as he lifted his head and looked down at Axel. The other man looked just a little reluctant, but then he nodded and closed his eyes, tugging Roxas back down again.

"Damn your powers of persuasion," he grumbled. Roxas laughed softly.


	3. Chapter 3

The next thing he knew was Sora's voice. "Oh what the _fuck_!"

Roxas bolted upright, the same instinct that made him yank the blanket up from his waist making him throw the rest of it over Axel and hold it there; the other man had stirred when he moved, but now he seemed to realize that he was in deep shit if he forced his way out from under the comforter.

"Get _out_!" Roxas shrieked. "Get out get out get the fuck _out_!"

Poor Sora was standing inside the doorway, one hand on the doorknob and the other flailing a bit as though he couldn't decide whether or not to tangle it in his hair to express the existential crisis he was currently facing. It wasn't hard for Roxas to guess what it must have been like, to come home and find out that your baby brother, the late bloomer who's never even been kissed as far as you know, has apparently lost his virginity to a guy you've never met nor heard mention of…

"_OUT_!"

Sora finally seemed to snap out of it, hopping on one foot and nearly losing his balance in an attempt to turn around. "Yeah, out, I'm getting out, sorry, _sorry_!" He practically slammed the door behind him and Roxas could hear him pounding down the hallway calling for Riku.

Roxas scrambled out of bed and locked the door quickly (always ironic when trying to guard against the Keyblade, he supposed), then turned off the desk lamp that had been left on the night before. He turned to find Axel peeking out at him. The older man tossed the blankets back after a moment and let out a deep sigh. He was face-down and Roxas had been lying between him and the door, so there was no way Sora could've seen anything but a mop of black hair and probably enough of an arm or back to confirm that his little brother was indeed a fag.

"I gotta go," Axel said, rolling out of bed and beginning to collect his clothes from the floor. "Obviously. Sorry, I massively overslept. I should've been outta here at sunrise." He tugged his boxers on and then started for his jeans as Roxas grabbed his robe to put it on and then just stood there and watched him, his heart beginning to ache again.

"I'm sorry," he said, realizing that he should've set an alarm.

Axel shook his head quickly. "Nah, I assumed I'd get up. Last night was by far the easiest time I've had sleeping since I lost you, wasn't expecting it." He'd finished his socks now, was grabbing his shoes and yanking them on without tying them. Roxas licked his lips, tried to think of words, took a deep breath and then another as his eyes darted back and forth over Axel's thin frame.

His shirt was the last article of clothing Axel had to tug on, and when he did Roxas blurted, "Come back." Realizing what a silly request that was he added, "Please." That didn't make it any better.

The taller man paused for a moment, then finished adjusting his shirt's hem and the waist of his jeans. "You know I will," he said quietly. He realized he had nothing more to do before leaving and slumped a bit, reaching up to scratch the back of his head. After a moment, something seemed to occur to him because his expression changed and he darted forward, startling Roxas as he grabbed him around the waist and lifted him clear off his feet.

"What the—Ax!" Roxas immediately tried to push away from Axel; he had a feeling that when he was off his feet it was rarely good news.

Axel's arms just tightened and he leaned forward to whisper in Roxas's ear, "Parting is such sweet sorrow."

Roxas froze, at first confused, and then it sunk into his brain just what Axel was getting at. At first he couldn't hold back a smile, but then he schooled his features and punched his arm as best he could from such close range. "Nice parallel, wrong fucking character, you moron."

"I'm smart and you know it," Axel said smugly, letting Roxas down and bending to kiss his neck softly. "Now if you'll excuse me, I gotta alight through yonder window before your kinsmen barge back in and own my ass."

"You're a cheesy idiot," Roxas muttered, but there wasn't even any faux emphasis behind the words, and they were further belied by the insistent kiss he pulled Axel down into a split second later. He held him there until he was breathless, trying to ensure that he'd be able to recall his taste and smell and feel after he left, and then he finally let go and stepped back.

Axel looked down at him for a moment, catching his breath and wearing a rather melancholy expression. "I'll see you around, partner," he murmured, reaching out to ruffle Roxas's hair a bit. Roxas had the courtesy to give him a mock irritated look, but his heart wasn't in it.

"How long are you going to keep coming through my window like this?" he asked just before Axel climbed back out onto the fire escape.

A sigh as Axel paused, already half outside, and then, "As long as I have to." The day was overcast, and he slid the pane shut again before he disappeared. Roxas stared at it for a minute that seemed like ten, and then he realized for the first time that where there used to be a lock on the frame, there was only charred wood.

--

"Roxas, I am _so sorry_," Sora said, holding his hands up defensively as his brother came into the kitchen to dig through the fridge. "I did _not_ mean to walk in on you and… and…" He furrowed his eyebrows, then leaned over the breakfast bar to try to see down the hallway. "Where is he?"

"He went down the fire escape because you mortified us beyond all reason and he didn't want his presence to cause any further mental anguish for any party involved," Roxas said matter-of-factly, not looking up as he grabbed some sort of fruit juice – he didn't bother checking what was in it – and took a drink from the carton. Something with grapefruit, apparently.

A rather disappointed look crossed Sora's face that Roxas caught as he turned around and leaned against the counter. "Well, who is he?" his brother asked.

Hn, Roxas probably should've thought up something for this before he came out here, shouldn't he? Okay, well, where would he have met someone to have sex with? Red light district. Gay bar. Coffee shop. "He's a guy from my freshman seminar." Good start. Now, name. Axel. Alex. Alexander. "His name is Zander." And? "And we're not dating or anything so don't get your hopes up."

Sora furrowed his eyebrows and pursed his lips. "You lost it on a one-night stand, Rox?"

"'M gonna be twenty soon," Roxas grumbled. "Had to do it sometime. And he's really hot." He almost felt bad saying that; Sora was a rather hopeless romantic and most likely had figured the guy to take Roxas's virginity would be the one to make an honest woman out of him. There was probably a dowry for him set out of his older brother's bank account somewhere.

Roxas thought about the idea of Axel making an honest woman out of him and suddenly snorted with laughter, right in the middle of taking another drink from the juice carton. Sora gave him a rather distasteful look and muttered, "I hope you're gonna finish that."

It wasn't until Sora left that Roxas remembered that his brother had been lying to him about the year he'd lost blatantly and consistently for the past two and a half months. He suddenly felt sick, so he dumped the rest of the juice, crushed the carton to throw it away, and went back to his room to collapse down on his mattress.

He tried to take his mind off of it; he tried to remember how to use his powers. He tried shaping light, bending it, changing its color, brightness, anything. He remembered how it had felt. He remembered how it had felt so _natural_. He couldn't do it.

--

Two nights passed; things were still seeping into Roxas's memory while he slept, slowly but surely, good things that had been tainted. The life-changing alteration to his genetic code that had almost gotten him killed; the friends that were out there somewhere that he wasn't sure if he'd ever see again; the lover who, for some reason he didn't fully understand, couldn't do more than climb through his bedroom window every so often.

On the evening of the third day he sat on the couch writing out page after page of kanji practice. His mind wasn't on it, and after a while he was pretty sure he'd have been able to do the stroke order of all of them in his sleep but was unable to recall what a single one of them actually _meant_. He waited until Riku had shut himself in his and Sora's room with a stack of paperwork and Sora had curled up at the opposite end of the couch to flip through channels with his particular brand of selective attention deficit, and then he said, "So, I think I'm starting to remember things."

The TV stopped on a Spanish soap opera. Sora had taken French in high school and sucked at it anyway. There was a strained undertone to his voice as he said, "Really?"

Roxas watched Sora closely: the particular, sudden stiffness to his motions, the subtle shift in his expression, the fact that what excitement he was showing at the possibility that his amnesiac younger sibling might be on the road to recovery came too little and too late to be genuine. "Yeah," Roxas said, and he went back to his repetitive scribbles that never looked quite like the examples.

It took a while, but Sora finally prodded, "What're you remembering?"

Shrugging his shoulders nonchalantly and bobbing his head rather ambivalently, Roxas said, "Little things, not too specific. People I don't know and places I don't recognize. I lived down at the main campus last year, right? So I must be remembering being there."

"Um, yeah, probably," Sora murmured. "That's really awesome. Tell me if you start to get anything else, okay?"

"Yeah, no problem," Roxas said, still staring at his paper like he couldn't care less that his memory was beginning to come back. "Sucks, though, that we had to move and switch last names and all. Seems like I had a lot of friends down there."

Roxas looked up in slight surprise as Sora suddenly stood up and turned off the TV. "Sorry, Rox, I'm gonna go lie down. I'm not feeling so hot." He wasn't looking at Roxas, and as he left he reached up and wiped at his eyes, doing a lousy job of being casual about it. Very much despite himself, Roxas's heart broke slightly.

--

Two more nights and Axel still hadn't returned. Roxas was sleeping worse than ever, the semi-conscious hope that he couldn't quash keeping his mind from really ever resting and the lack of REM sleep beginning to get to him. The note was gone, but that was okay; he still had the photos under his pillow to give him a bit of tolerable company when he thought he was going to go insane being in the house with Riku and Sora.

And then the day after the second night, Roxas came home from class and laid down to try to sleep off a tension headache. His hand slipped under his pillow as it usually did these days when he slept, still under the strange little superstition that if he had those physical reminders of his past pressed against his fingertips his memories might come back easier in Axel's absence. Immediately he felt that something was slightly different, and he sat up abruptly and tossed his pillow aside.

There was another picture there, face down on top of the others. It had a message scrawled on the back in freshly-sharpened pencil and equally sharp handwriting. Roxas picked it up immediately, heart pounding.

_Things just aren't going my way this week and I've got no time. I think you should have this back now, and to be honest I'm kinda chickenshit so I'll give you time to think on it before you see me again._

_Don't freak out and don't worry. Just trust me. I'll see you tomorrow night._

When he turned it over, his entire universe tilted off its axis.

_Roxas walked as close to Axel as he could and murmured under his breath, "Why's he having _us_ do this? Why doesn't he get Llyr and Hati back in there?" He was amazed at how easily the names were coming now. They'd never called each other by the codes the government had given them back when they were actually supposed to be those things. But since they'd reorganized, they'd all kind of figured that it was about time they put them to use._

"_Apparently they were at it all night, pardon the innuendo."_

_Very vehemently ignoring the innuendo – Demyx and Saïx were probably about the last people he wanted to imagine like that – Roxas continued, "Well, fuck, if the good cop bad cop shit isn't working, what the fuck does he think we're gonna be able to do?"_

"_I don't know," Axel muttered. He tugged his gloves out of his pocket and pulled them on. "I guess he just doesn't want us to let up."_

_The door was metal and recessed into the thick brick walls that filled the basement. How the hell had Xemnas found this place, anyway? Roxas tugged Axel to a stop outside it and looked up at him rather worriedly. "Ax, what're we gonna do if nobody meets our demands? Are we gonna _kill_ this guy?"_

"_He did conspire to murder thirteen people."_

"_Yeah, but…"_

_Axel sighed through his nose. "I dunno. I think we're going to avoid it at all costs, even if it takes a few months to wear him down. It'd show certain parties that we mean business but it'd still be really bad PR _

_with everyone else…" This didn't make Roxas feel much better, but Axel smiled softly, reaching out to adjust Roxas's thick black coat – which was slightly askew on his shoulders – and briefly nudge his chin up with his fingers. "It'll be all right."_

_A slight nod as Axel pushed open the door with a bit of trouble and let him go through first. It was like walking into a depressing cliché, the bare walls and the concrete floor and the single lousy lighting fixture and the man tied to a bare-bones chair. He was older, but not old enough to garner any sympathy for it – not that Saïx would've paid any even if he were – and his platinum hair was streaked with dry blood where he must've really pissed the berserker off. Roxas wondered how Demyx had handled that. Probably surprisingly well._

_Roxas recognized him as someone he'd seen a few times around the facility where they'd been trained, someone too high up to hang around all the time, though. Someone high enough up that he knew Sora. When they entered, the man looked up and stared at Axel, and then Roxas. "Kagutsuchi," he said in mocking acknowledgement of Roxas's companion before his eyes shifted. A slight smile quirked his lips and he drawled in a deep, melodic voice, "Hyperion. Does your brother know you're here?"_

_It had been difficult, making up his mind on whether or not to tell Axel about Sora. But he trusted the redhead – Axel had saved his life on multiple occasions now, Axel had confided in him things that meant he trusted Roxas implicitly, Axel had never given him any reason not to. So he'd asked Axel to please, if they ran into the Keyblade in the course of their work, not kill him. Axel had agreed, and he'd never breathed a word to anyone._

_In fact, he seemed a little more zealous than even Roxas was in keeping his family a secret from the rest of the Organization, because before Roxas could say or do anything in response to that question, Axel had grabbed the bottom of his coat with one hand to hold it back as his leg shot up and caught the man hard under the chin with his foot. Roxas wouldn't have been surprised if that had broken his jaw, but apparently it hadn't because all the man did was turn slowly to spit a good amount of blood onto the floor._

"_Keep messing with him, fucker," Axel practically purred. "I'm not a cruel guy. I need the excuse."_

--

Roxas couldn't sleep; things kept popping into his mind, things that were so foreign to him it was like he was remembering someone else's life, except that it wasn't because the memories felt so very right exactly where they were. He remembered what he and Axel had been during that year – they were the bomb squad.

He dug up everything he could online about bombings propagated by the Organization since they'd started, to jog his memory. They weren't quite your usual terrorist group – they didn't like killing 

people, for one, not unless they really deserved it. Well, maybe some of them would have _liked_ it, but it was against policy. Bloodshed, Xemnas had always pointed out, just made them look bad.

Most of the targets were local, government facilities within driving distance. Intelligence gathering, where they'd go in, take what they needed, and leave again – then blow the rest of it up. That was a real pain in the ass for the Feds, and it meant that nobody ever knew exactly what they knew. Others were national. Sometimes what they needed – or _who _they needed – just wasn't around. So they got sent places.

Chicago, New York, Philadelphia, some backwater town in Utah. Blowing shit up wasn't always necessary to what the mission was, but Axel and Roxas considered it a good way of covering tracks. And something of a calling card. It certainly got them attention, the fact that they'd clear a place out and then burn it to the ground with no casualties. Made people speculate as to what the hell they wanted. Built up public interest.

San Francisco should've been on the list, but the senior senator from California left unexpectedly the day they arrived there, so they went back to DC and the senator's lovely home stayed intact. _That was the best one because it was where the least amount of business got done, if you know what I mean._

And it was fun, Roxas remembered. He and Axel were good at what they did, very good. Roxas could get them in almost anywhere unseen, and if he couldn't Zexion got called in. Axel made bombs that couldn't be defused. They worked well together. And they were glad to do it, because they couldn't hack like Lexaeus and Zexion and they sure as hell didn't want to be in charge of the bulk of the kidnapping and intimidation. Missions were simple, missions were clear-cut. They didn't have to think too much on missions.

_Roxas never announced himself; he just lifted the covers on Axel's bed and crawled right in. Axel expected it by this point, and when Roxas settled himself practically on top of him, his partner simply whispered, "Hey, babe. Sex or conversation?"_

"_Does it feel like I'm here for sex, Axel?" Roxas muttered flatly, leaning on his elbow and looking down at the redhead. The light in the room was almost nonexistent, so he made a slight gesture with one hand and the space above them lit up softly with a thousand twinkling pinpoints of white light, a personal indoor night sky that raised visibility just enough to talk comfortably._

_Axel snorted and replied, "So what'd you wanna talk about?"_

_A sigh as Roxas scratched his head and murmured, "We're doing this to take out the people who were complicit in the experiment, right?"_

"_We do what we must because we can."_

_That was Axel's favorite Xemnas-ism, but tonight it didn't get the laugh it usually did out of Roxas. "I've just been thinking… this was supposed to be like… like renovating a house. Getting rid of the rotten parts before the whole structure goes bad."  
_

"_I think it's only right. We know about the corruption, we have the means to take care of it…"_

"_But the thing is that we've spent over six months looking into it, and the more we find out the more…" Roxas sighed again, heavily, and bobbed his head in thought as he stared down at fingers tracing Axel's collarbone. "I mean, the president knew about this. What're we gonna do, kidnap the president and force his resignation? Kill him?"_

_Axel chewed on his lower lip for a long moment, staring almost blankly up at the fake stars. "I don't know, Rox."_

_It was a possibility and they both knew it. Roxas worried more and more that this was going to get out of hand, and he could read Axel well enough now to know that he was struggling with the same. They always whispered together, but now he was barely audible as he asked, "How far would you go for this, Ax?"_

_Green eyes moved to blue and Axel whispered, "Far enough to protect you."_

_That took a little bit of Roxas's breath. Axel spent a lot of time talking bullshit; it was probably what he was best at, and somehow people bought it even though they were entirely aware that Axel was utterly full of it. That was just the way Axel was. But it wasn't the way he was with Roxas. If Axel was in a bad mood, or if Roxas did something to hurt him, he'd lash out, say things he didn't mean, and so would Roxas. If he was deliriously happy, if Roxas undressed him and worked him to the point of incoherence, he would say ridiculous things, make promises that no mortal man could keep, and so would Roxas. Those were the times when Axel lied to Roxas, and when Roxas lied to Axel, but there was never and never had been, for a second, any deception._

_When Axel said he would do what he had to in order to protect Roxas, he meant it. He already had, and he would continue to do so. Roxas's mood lifted a bit, and he had to smile as he shifted his body against Axel's and buried his face against the taller man's neck to kiss it softly. "My hero," he murmured, voice too soft and appreciative to come off as sarcastic. Axel hummed questioningly as though he wasn't sure he'd heard Roxas right, but Roxas just said, "Let's pretend I came here for sex."_

--

Dinner was the most awkward it had ever been in their house, and it was obvious that Sora and Riku couldn't figure out why. They started off trying to talk to Roxas; Riku kept bringing up politics and Sora tried to prod something out of Roxas on the story he knew his younger brother was supposed to be 

working on for his creative writing class. Roxas just gave little cursory yes or no answers, and soon Sora and Riku were mostly talking to each other. But apparently Roxas's bad mood was stifling, because shortly after that no one was talking at all.

Roxas couldn't help but keep glancing up at the two of them. Living with his older brother and his older brother's fiancé. Really fucking weird, he thought; what young couple wanted a grown sibling hanging around? But Roxas was recovering from a major medical ordeal, and he needed time to rest and regroup and of course they didn't mind having him stay, he was Sora's little brother and Riku understood and they were a family, weren't they?

That wasn't it. Roxas needed an eye kept on him. Roxas was an amnesiac member of the terrorist cell Sora was fighting and Riku was in charge of hunting down. Roxas was there because he was untrustworthy and they couldn't risk losing him.

How did they keep track of him when he was out of their sight, though? When he left the house for school? Roxas thought about it all through dinner. Serious felons on probation had tiny tracking chips implanted near the bone in their wrists, just under the skin's surface. They'd had the same thing, the thirteen of them, he remembered. Theirs had been quite palpable where they were, if you knew where to look, a little bump you could press your fingers to. Axel had burned his, Roxas had made a little laser incision and dug his out. Somehow they'd all gotten rid of them. The chips had been meant to protect them from capture, not to stop them from running.

Roxas rested his arms on the table and stared blankly at the wall as though completely lost in thought as he scratched absently at that spot, at the little badly-healed scar. When he let his gaze go back to the other two men in the room, he did it just in time to catch their stares moving from the motion of his own fingers to each other.

Even in all his time trying to be quiet with Axel, it had never been so difficult to keep himself from screaming. He couldn't look at them any longer, either of them, or he was sure he was going to blow up, so he got up and stalked back to his room without excusing himself. He reached under his pillow to take out the picture, the last one Axel had left.

He couldn't remember exactly where they'd been getting ready to go; obviously not out to the grocery store, since they were both wearing their business attire, the long black coats with the oversized hoods. They came down to their knees; a significant shortening had taken place to the design after a chorus of complaints about not being able to walk up stairs in the first ones. Roxas's was unzipped, and he was sitting on the floor concentrating hard on trying to lace up a pair of combat boots.

It wasn't something anyone would've taken a picture of, except that Axel had come up behind him and was reaching out to grab handfuls of Roxas's hair with fingers that were the center of fist-sized fireballs. Roxas remembered the flash of Demyx's camera and the blond's laugh that had alerted him to the fact that something was going on behind him. He remembered turning to glare at his best-friend-by-day and 

the veneer of innocence that Axel had rapidly slipped on. With each day that passed, it was easier to remember.

_Roxas had headphones in, so he didn't even realize that anyone had entered the room until the stupid little hearts and obscene messages Axel had been sending him via DS were replaced by an arrow. It was pointing to his right, and absently Roxas looked up before he realized that there was nothing but the back of the sofa and a blank wall there, and then he quickly realized that Axel had forgotten to account for perspective and was referring to his own right._

_He'd been trying to point out that Larxene and Marluxia were back. Roxas reached into his pocket and paused his music, but he didn't indicate that he had done so to anyone; he just sent a little message back to Axel, who was watching the way his expression had shifted from thinly-veiled amusement to a hardened mask to cover his worry. _Please ask.

"_How'd it go?" Axel asked, twiddling his stylus between his first and middle finger as he leaned back on his arm of the couch and gave the newcomers what he considered to be his most winning smile – and what others considered to be the smile they'd most like to wipe off his face._

_From the look of things, it hadn't gone well. They were a mess; Larxene's hair was full of dirt and partially-dried blood, Marluxia's clothes were torn practically to shreds in a couple of places, and they were both sporting a collection of extremely nasty bruises. It looked like the hem of Larxene's coat might even have been burned. Therefore it wasn't much of a surprise when her immediate response to Axel's question was, "Fuck off, you stupid shit." Her gaze and her voice softened only just slightly as she looked back to Marluxia and added, "I gotta go talk to Xemnas."_

_She was out of there a moment later, and Marluxia was left standing in the entryway getting out of his maimed coat and looking like he was going through quite a bit of pain to do it. The tone Axel used with him was identical to what he might have if he were asking Marluxia what he wanted for breakfast after the older man had just come back from a refreshing morning jog. "So what happened, Hyakinthos? Have a run-in with the Keyblade? Again?"_

_The look Marluxia gave Axel at that was so dry the latter could've sparked a wildfire with it just by snapping his fingers. Not only was it an incredibly stupid question, but of all of them he probably hated his other name the most; he said it made him sound like the main character of a stuffy British comedy, and nothing irritated him more than routine use of it. He tossed the remains of his coat to the floor and set about trying to get out of his boots. "Yes, _Kagutsuchi_, we did," he muttered as he braced a hand on the wall for balance and began tugging at the laces of one. "Your powers of perception never cease to amaze me…"_

_Axel remained totally nonplussed. "Did you even manage to land a hit on him this time?"_

_Roxas's breath caught in his throat automatically, holding for the answer. Marluxia sighed and said, "No," and Roxas breathed out, pretending to be engrossed in whatever was on his handheld and in his headphones but closing his eyes and thanking whoever was listening for that. Sora was on the wrong side of this, but that didn't mean Roxas wouldn't be devastated if his big brother were hurt._

"_Eh, don't worry about it, I'm sure you'll get a hit in eventually, maybe a good punch right before he rips that pretty hair of yours out of your scalp, gorgeous," Axel muttered, going back to the Pictochat as he tapped away with his stylus. Roxas bristled; of course Axel only said that because he considered Marluxia a preening, effeminate moron and knew it would piss him off, but it was still irritating._

_Marluxia managed to keep from starting anything with Axel, though, or at least from going along with what Axel was starting. He finally yanked his boots off and growled mostly to himself as he left, "I swear to god, that weapon of his is totally fucking different every single fucking time…"_

_Axel looked up at Roxas, who shot him an irritated glare. "Oh, come on," he said. "Don't gimme that look; I'm just being a jerk."_

_He tapped the stylus on the DS, the one that Roxas had bought him for his birthday, and the preemptive addendum to that sentence that he'd been working on popped over to Roxas's own screen. _I'll make it up to you. You can gag me and pound me into the mattress.

_Another glare was fired towards Axel's end of the couch, and Roxas muttered, "Fuck you, asshole."_

_And a broad grin was what he got in return; Axel knew that was Roxas's way of accepting the apology._


	4. Chapter 4

The next day was, Roxas was fairly sure, the longest in history. He spent his classes staring at clocks – or, if there wasn't a clock in the room, his cell phone. He tried to eat, felt sick, and gave the food to Naminé. He watched the news when he got home, six hours of it. Sora came in every so often and watched Roxas staring unseeing at same stories, different anchor, breaking news, rinse and repeat. He asked if Roxas wanted dinner, Roxas said he wasn't feeling well. Finally Sora and Riku went to bed and Roxas got up to go sit in his and wait for Axel to crawl through his window.

Axel didn't come. The longer the night went on, the more anticipation turned to anxiety. Roxas sat down on his bed to get some reading done at half past ten. By one, he couldn't even put up a pretense of concentrating. He just sat there staring at the open window and telling himself that Axel had come this late before.

But Axel had never come at four in the morning, the point at which Roxas ended up curled up under the window sobbing uncontrollably into his pillow. He felt ridiculous and so fucking childish, but he'd been waiting for a week and Axel had said he would be here and he was mentally and physically exhausted; there was no way to stop the tears until he'd run out and slipped into something that hardly even qualified as sleep. It was four hours later when he cracked his eyes open to find Axel looking down at him, a gaunt, pale specter. For a split second, Roxas wondered if Axel had died and come to say goodbye. Somehow the idea didn't seem so foreign. But then he was sitting up and reaching for him, barely remembering to be quiet as he said, "Axel, where were you?"

Lithely, Axel sidestepped his grasp. He had his arms wrapped tightly over his chest, fists balled in the front of his own sweatshirt, and when he stopped moving again Roxas could see that he was trembling. Roxas got up, a little unsteadily, and took a step toward Axel, who met it with a backwards step of his own.

"What the hell is the matter with you?" Roxas exclaimed, his voice holding more hurt than anger. Axel didn't say anything, so he quickly closed the distance between them and grabbed him by the shoulders before he could get away. "Axel, would you just talk to—oh my god, what…"

Having lived eighteen of his nineteen years as a functioning member of society, Roxas had it deeply ingrained in him that there were some things you simply did not say to people. So it took him a moment to override that particular social more by telling himself that this was Axel, and he could tell Axel anything. "You smell fucking _terrible_."

Immediately he regretted saying so, because Axel squeezed his eyes shut almost as if blinking back tears. Feeling like he had to prove that he'd love Axel no matter how bad he smelled, Roxas threw his arms around the other man's neck and held him close. There was a moment when neither of them moved, and then Axel's hands slid out from where they'd been pinned between them and came to rest on Roxas's hips. His voice had only a thin, heavily cracked veneer of strength as he said, "I saw your brother and Riku leaving. Can I use your shower?"

Roxas nodded dumbly and stepped back. "It's across the hall; go ahead and get in and I'll find you some clothes." He started toward the door, but a moment later there was a hand on his wrist. He turned back to Axel and was a little surprised at the look on his face, the near desperation. With the already pallid tone to his skin, the dark rings around his eyes despite the lack of makeup, and the short black hair framing his face and making it all that much more extreme, he wouldn't have looked out of place lying in a sterile bed hooked up to an IV.

"I can't… please just come… talk to me. Just sit in there and talk to me. Now that I'm here, I can't be alone."

Nodding again, Roxas took Axel's hand from his wrist and squeezed it comfortingly before letting go and saying, "Yeah, of course. I'll be in there in two minutes, okay?"

The response almost inaudible, but it was there. "All right."

It took a bit of digging through Riku's closet, but Roxas managed to find an old pair of pinstriped pants that were so not Riku he'd probably never miss them and a t-shirt that would so compliment Axel's eyes Roxas didn't really care if Riku missed it or not. He dropped them off in his room before going into the bathroom, knocking lightly as he entered. Apparently Axel couldn't even handle the two minutes alone; even though he'd gotten the shower running, he hadn't taken his clothes off and was just sitting on the edge of the bathtub with his face buried in his forearms on his knees.

He didn't have any idea what was wrong, but pain was still cutting through Roxas's heart; Axel had been _his_ strength since their lives intersected again, and now apparently he was broken. Roxas pursed his lips and went over to physically pull the taller man to his feet, mildly surprised to find when he did that Axel wasn't crying. Axel cooperated, and when Roxas began to tug his clothes off of him he let that happen too. "I'm sorry," he said, meeting Roxas's eyes when the blond glanced up at him.

"Don't apologize," Roxas replied, pushing Axel's jeans and boxers down over his thighs so that his lover could step out of them. He then began quickly pulling off his own clothes, forcibly ignoring any self-consciousness because that was stupid at this point and now wasn't the time, and said, "I'll stay with you. Let's get you cleaned up, and you can talk when you feel like talking."

It was by far the strangest shower they'd ever taken together. Axel was quiet, and Roxas filled the silence talking about his classes; part of him worried that Axel might not want to hear anything about Roxas's life without him, but he had no other topics for one-sided conversation. Axel didn't argue when Roxas wanted to wash his hair, and Roxas joked quietly about how much less troublesome it was now with only a couple of inches instead of a foot to worry about.

"It is easier," Axel murmured. He'd seemed interested in everything Roxas had to say, as interested as he could be, but talking about something Axel knew about in a safe, inoffensive way at least got three words instead of the occasional one in response.

Roxas forged ahead with that, then. "I really like you like this, you know. It was jarring at first, but it opens up your face. And your eyes stand out more since they're not competing with the red. Not that I'm not hoping you'll let it grow back someday, and what little eyebrow you _do_ have is gonna fall out if you keep dying 'em…"

Finally something of a smile played over Axel's lips, even if it was still a melancholy sort. "At least now I don't look like Axel McDonagh, the human St. Patrick's Day parade." Roxas couldn't bite back a laugh as Axel tilted his head back a bit to finish rinsing it and then allowed the shorter man to tug him down to his own level. Roxas stood on his toes to smell Axel's hair and decided that it was gone, whatever that unfamiliar, burnt smell had been.

"I don't think you're toxic anymore," he murmured, but just as he turned to give Axel a reassuring smile, he found himself being pulled flush against that pale body, skinny arms wrapping around his waist and back and holding him tightly. He could feel Axel's face pressed against the top of his head, and he opened his mouth to speak, but then thought better of it. Sighing softly and closing his eyes, he held Axel in turn, shifting his body until they melded into each other, muscle and bone fitting against muscle and bone, and Roxas could feel the water pooling in the hollows between them until it overflowed and ran down to the slippery white acrylic beneath their feet.

The only reason Roxas became aware of the fact that tears were mixing with the water was the hitching of Axel's breath; at first he could only feel it against his chest, but then it got stronger and the shoulder his head was resting against jerked slightly as arms involuntarily tightened around him. Roxas had no idea what to do for that, so he just tightened his arms as well and held on. After a minute, one finger came up to begin tracing eight letters across the too-sharp delineations of Axel's spine and ribs. The only response he got to that was a broken sob.

By the time Axel calmed down again, the water was beginning to run cold, and finally they loosened their grips and Roxas reached around his lover to turn off the faucet. Axel didn't look up to meet his eyes, and Roxas found himself tugging him out of the shower again. This time Axel didn't let him help. "You don't have to baby me," he murmured, the little bit of indignation his voice held obviously meaning nothing at all.

While Roxas dried himself and tugged new clothes on back in his room, he watched Axel do the same, running through the motions like some sort of robot, a hollow shell who could only remember the mechanics of it. As Axel tugged on his t-shirt, Roxas looked down to adjust his jeans, and that was when the quiet that had overtaken them since leaving the bathroom was broken again.

"I killed Vexen."

The silence returned like a hammer slammed into Roxas's chest. Fortunately the bed was close enough for him to fall onto, and he did, collapsing into a sitting position as those words penetrated his mind. He 

stared at Axel, grasping at something to say and finding nothing, and his gaze wasn't met. Axel just stared at a spot between the wall and the floor, and when he spoke again he punctuated it with one of those ridiculous hand gestures that made everything he said seem like a continual, frivolous stream of nonsense, no matter what the words themselves were.

"I didn't care when I did it; he deserved it. Fuck, he deserved more than I gave him. I watched him die and I really just… didn't feel a thing." He glanced up at Roxas, head and eyelids lowering slightly when he caught sight of the utterly pale and horrified look on the blond's face. "He followed me last night," he added quietly. "I caught him, and… things went downhill from there. But the thing is, I had to get rid of the body. That's why I was so late, I had to take him out of town and find an abandoned building to do it in.

"I had to sit there and watch him burn. I had to pour all my energy into breaking him down until there was nothing left except these little pieces of bone, and then I sat there and I had to crush those into ashes with my fucking shoes, and if I couldn't break them I just ground them into the dirt as hard as I could. He was a person when I started with him. I don't know shit about him outside of being Ull, but he must've had a family somewhere, he was somebody's kid, and whatever the fuck he was to Marluxia, but when I finished with him he was nothing, he was just this burnt spot out in the middle of this abandoned warehouse in the middle of fuckass nowhere."

So that was what was wrong with Axel, why he'd come in smelling so awful and on the verge of a mental break; he'd just had to cremate a human body. The thought made Roxas sick, and he was sure it couldn't even begin to compare to the reality. His best friend's fists were balling in the hem of Riku's shirt, and Roxas could tell that he was twisting the material between his fingers from the changing delineation of the tendons in his hand. He'd never seen the other man so stressed before; even the night they'd escaped hadn't been this bad, but Roxas was pretty sure that then Axel had only been strong for his sake.

"I didn't want to destroy him like that," Axel added, voice getting a little stronger as he began to pace. "I wanted him dead, I really did, but the rest of it…" He squeezed his eyes shut as though trying to remember the logic. "I can't go back to the Organization; they'll kill me, and if that sick fuck Marluxia gets hold of me he'll try out every fucking creative use of plant life he can think of on me first. And if I leave and the government gets me, well… a murder charge might be the difference between capital and life without parole, not much difference there but capital would mean I couldn't write you letters begging for conjugal visits."

Roxas didn't laugh; Axel didn't seem to be able to work up the will to laugh at his own grim joke, either. They were both silent for a moment, and part of Roxas wanted nothing more than to grab Axel and hold him until everything else was forgotten, but he stayed seated and murmured, "Axel, what the fuck happened?"

_Now_ Axel laughed, and it was harsh and utterly humorless. "It's kind of a long story, actually," he said, dropping into Roxas's desk chair. "Oddly enough, it starts out with me killing someone else. I didn't tell you Loki got taken out, did I?"

"Axel, you… _what_? Zex is _dead_?" He couldn't even get his lips to speak the idea that Axel had murdered another one of their cohorts in the form of a question. Zexion had never done a thing to him, and all he could do was picture Lexaeus, who'd never been anything but kind, without his best friend. Suddenly he wanted to cry.

Axel sighed and started in, dropping his head into his hand and massaging his face with his fingertips. "Rox, when they kidnapped you, they said hunting you down was a lost cause, but I kept telling them that I was going to find you, whether or not they wanted me to and with or without their help. So finally they gave me Zexion as my new partner and sent us out to track you down. But since he was the one who knew how to hack, he was in charge of gathering intel and I was in charge of covering our tracks.

"And I never saw any of the fucking findings, and after the second break-in they said it was looking like you were out of the country, permanently. But they kept sending us out, and I kept thinking why the fuck would they do that if they thought you were gone and _I_ was the only one who really wanted to find you in the first place? And then I realized that we must've dug up stacks of shit about you, even if they weren't telling me any of it, and maybe somewhere in there they managed to find out about Sora. They had to have known that you had connections, since you didn't end up in prison, and they probably found out exactly who your connection was. Maybe they wanted to find you then to get at your brother. And I'll admit that I didn't really care, I was just desperate to get to _you_ and terrified that they would try to use you the way we used other people.

"So the next time we went out, we got hold of a bunch of your files, and as soon as I'd blown up the records room, we got caught. You know Zex was practically defenseless; I was supposed to protect him, but I didn't. He was obviously in it with the others, and I was never going to find you otherwise, so I let him get killed. Or maybe just captured, I have no way of knowing, all I could tell was that he was shot. Your brother would know. It's not important, though; I could've saved him, and I decided not to. And I took the files, got what I needed from them, and burned them. And then I lied about the whole ordeal."

It was becoming difficult for Roxas to even listen, mentally as well as physically. He didn't want to hear it and could barely concentrate over the way his heart was trying to pound out of his chest and the images running through his mind. He'd thought he'd seen Axel at his worst, when he'd shown no mercy to that scientist they'd had to interrogate, Anselm or whatever his name had been, but apparently that had been a bad assumption. They'd always avoided killing; Roxas had assumed that they were incapable of it, and Axel had always seemed so disgusted by the idea.

_He wouldn't put that aside for the cause_, a voice in the back of Roxas's mind whispered. _But he did it for you. Everything bad he's done was for you. You're destroying him._ Roxas's hands came up to clutch at the sides of his head, fingers tangling in his hair as he tried to fight back that thought.

Roxas looked up to find Axel staring at him, expression not quite blank but not quite readable either. In that moment his lover was as much a stranger to him as he'd been when he'd closed Roxas's DS that one time in that waiting room, as he'd been when he crawled through Roxas's window and pinned him to the mattress. For the third time in his life, it was like he was seeing Axel for the very first time. His heart was breaking, was about to give out on him, he was sure of it. There was no way he could feel like this and keep functioning.

Something in him just kept repeating that Axel hadn't changed, that this wasn't a different person, that this was still the same Axel and that this new… fuck, whatever the hell this was, it was added onto everything else he'd found out about his lover; it wasn't replacing anything. Roxas _knew _Axel, couldn't believe that he didn't. Axel had hated hurting people, Axel had gone out of the way to avoid doing so, the only time Axel had gotten violent was when he was absolutely convinced that the person deserved it. And even that had taken the addition of a desire to protect Roxas's interests.

And there was that goddamned voice again. _If it weren't for you, he'd be innocent_.

He was shaking as he stood up; for a moment it felt like he was going to fall back onto the bed, but when Axel saw that and reached over to help, Roxas shoved him away, hard enough that he actually staggered back a couple of steps. Finally the thin veneer of forced calm Axel was wearing cracked, and the pain on his face brought tears to Roxas's eyes as surely as if Axel had been the one to reject _him_.

When Axel spoke, it sounded as though his voice was going to give out at any moment, like he had to force each word past his throat. "I don't expect you to love me, Roxas. I don't even expect you to _like_ me, and I didn't when I first came here. I should've told you in the first place, but you wouldn't've understood. I should've kept you at arm's distance, and I know I'm weak for not doing it. But the only thing I want – the only thing I've _ever_ wanted – is for you to know your past."

There were a thousand thoughts fighting for dominance in Roxas's head, and before he even knew what he was going to say one had forced its way to the forefront and past his lips. "Fuck you, Axel." He was surprised to hear himself say it, surprised at the low growl it came out as. "What about what _I_ want, did you ever once think about _that_? I don't want to hear your selfless bullshit, your stupid goddamn idealism. Did you ever think maybe I'd give up my memories for _you_? Because I would've, Axel. If I had to choose between getting that year back but not having you and having that year gone for good but getting another go with the person I love, what the hell do you think I would've picked?"

For one of the only times Roxas could remember – aside from his little breakdown in the shower – Axel looked like he was on the verge of tears. He physically backed away from Roxas a few steps, breathing hard, hands balled in his shirt again. Roxas fought the urge to comfort him, squeezing his eyes shut and shaking his head angrily. "You've always been such an asshole, Ax. Remember the first time we met, when you were being a dick to Larxene for no fucking reason except to watch her blood pressure rise? At first I hated the fact that I found someone like you attractive, but I got over that because you treated 

other people like such a jerk but you were so fucking good to me, and I'm selfish because I couldn't help but love that I was the only one that got that from you."

By this point he was having to fight back sobs; he knew if he broke down completely now, Axel would speak, but he had to get out what he had to get out, and he had to do it _now_. "And you know what the other thing was? It was the fact that I knew that underneath the egotistical prick, there was a really fucking good person, Ax. I loved the fact that you drove everyone around us insane for no reason but wouldn't eat meat because it made you feel guilty. I loved that you didn't want to really _hurt_ anyone.

"So how could you do that?" he asked. "How could you fucking do what you did? At least one person is dead because of you, and you have to feel something, I _know_ you do, but you won't even _show_ it? You talk about it like it's nothing when… my god, Axel…"

"I thought that was what you did for someone you love," Axel interrupted suddenly, his voice cracked and fragile like a badly-repaired vase. "I thought that you put them before all others, whether right or wrong. You don't know the half of it, Rox, you really don't." He had to wipe at his eyes now; he wasn't really crying, but he was obviously having a hard time avoiding it. "But that doesn't matter. Even if that were all of it, just them working against you, trying to use you, I'd have done the same. I thought that was love, but maybe it's just me."

_They always whispered together, but now he was barely audible as he asked, "How far would you go for this, Ax?"_

_Green eyes moved to blue and Axel whispered, "Far enough to protect you."_

Roxas suddenly felt as though he couldn't breathe. He'd never called Axel's love into question, and Axel had never questioned his. It wasn't a matter of taking it for granted, it was just a matter of trust. The idea that Axel would think that his feelings weren't returned made him nauseous. And suddenly Roxas realized – _knew_ – that had it been a matter of Axel's well-being, he would have done away with any of the others without a second thought. That was the way it was supposed to be; that was the way he wanted it.

All the promises Axel had ever made Roxas had believed, because they mirrored the unspoken ones Roxas made to Axel. The problem was that he had never wanted Axel's love demonstrated this way. The only thing that had gone wrong was that now it was real.

"I'm sorry, Roxas," Axel said, sounding not just cracked but really broken now, "but I'm not going to pretend I regret it; I knew when I did it that you'd probably never forgive me, and at this point, well, it's probably better that way. I have to leave, and this'll make this easier on both of us. Just please let me finish what I have to say before I go. So I didn't lose you for nothing."

Roxas looked up at Axel, tearful eyes narrowing at him. A split second later, he was across the room and his fist was connecting with Axel's jaw. The taller man went down as much from his own too-late reflexive move backwards as from the punch. The closet door rattled violently in its frame as his head and shoulders connected with it, and he slid to the floor and hit it hard enough to audibly take his breath away.

Axel was pathetic, sitting there on the floor with his too-long legs splayed in front of him, looking up at Roxas in sheer shock as one hand came up to feel his jaw, almost as if he were somehow trying to feel for confirmation that what he thought had just happened really had. He was vulnerable in every possible sense of the word; Roxas could've picked from a long list of ways to hurt his lover in that moment, and Axel would've been powerless to stop any of them.

It seemed like forever before Roxas moved again; he just stared into Axel's confused, hurt eyes, his own expression unreadable, and then a moment later he was kneeling between Axel's legs. The change of position was so fast that Axel's eyes widened even more, and he braced himself on the carpet with both hands, digging his heels in and pushing himself even further back against the closet door. It was purely instinctive; he didn't have anywhere to go. He flinched as Roxas reached out and grabbed his collar to hold him there, but all that came next was words.

"You think my love is conditional, Axel?" Roxas growled lowly. "You think I wouldn't do the same for you? You think this relationship only goes one way? Or do you think I'm a hypocrite?" He shifted himself, crawling a bit closer to Axel, moving into a more awkward position to get nearer to him. His hand came up to cradle his lover's face, the hard, angry demeanor he was wearing giving way partially to a look of concern at the bruise blooming across pale skin. "You think I'd let you go?"

Axel stared at Roxas for a long, long moment, all the anger suddenly leaving his countenance to be replaced with guilt. He squeezed his eyes shut, and a single tear finally made its way down his left cheek. His voice was a choked whisper as he said, "That's not what I meant."

Roxas could've sworn that he'd already been shattered, but that tear tore him yet again, and suddenly he was sobbing. He slouched back on his knees, one hand catching his head as it dropped forward and the other coming down in a fist on Axel's chest, up near the shoulder. It probably hurt, but it was nothing compared to the punch he'd just landed on Axel's face. "Then why the fuck would you say it, Ax? How could you _think_ that?"

Silence, and then Axel murmured, "I wasn't thinking." Roxas could feel a hand reaching past his arm for his shoulder, and immediately Roxas's own hand flew out and pushed it away. He raised his eyes just in time to see another look of pure hurt cross Axel's face, and once again he ignored it.

"I don't get it, Ax," he managed between sobs. "What I've given you isn't enough? You're always the one who has to run in and protect me and fight for me and do terrible things for my sake, and all I can do is write you some stupid fucking note, right? And actions speak louder than words, I suppose? Fuck, then, 

you can take out that note in your wallet and give it back, because apparently it means exactly shit to you!"

Suddenly Axel's hands were on Roxas's shoulders, grabbing his shirt roughly before he could be pushed away, and Axel was holding him firmly in place as he leaned forward, eyes dangerously narrow and angrier than Roxas had ever seen them directed at himself; it startled, nearly frightened, the tears out of him. "Shut up, Rox! I didn't fucking mean it, all right? I don't need you to show me shit; I know you love me! But you fucking fell in love with me before I became a murderer, and if you didn't want me anymore I wouldn't blame you! But you do want me, don't you?"

One of his hands loosened; apparently he could sense that Roxas was losing his guard now, and those fingers made their way up to the back of his head to tangle roughly in blond hair. Roxas grabbed hold of Axel's shirt to keep him from making any moves that he didn't want, because Axel had a habit of doing that and forcing Roxas to want them by the time he was done.

"You surprised me, Rox," Axel growled, "by not understanding. You spoke too fucking soon, didn't you? But you get it now. You'd kill for me, you'd do exactly what I did, wouldn't you? _Wouldn't you_, Roxas?"

Roxas could still feel that anger boiling in the pit of his stomach, but the look on Axel's face was quelling him physically, and he hated the way he sank back a bit, almost cowered, as he nodded. In response to that physicality, he could feel Axel's hands loosening slightly, his touch becoming just a little gentler whether the other man realized it or not.

"Well guess what, Rox?" Axel said, voice still defensive and angry but just slightly quieter. "I believe you. You love me every bit as much as I love you. That's why you lie under your window and cry when I'm not here, the same reason I lie awake feeling sick when my bed is empty. You want me to trust you? Trust me, then. I tried to hurt you the way you hurt me. And I didn't. Fucking. Mean it."

Silence followed that, and then Roxas let go of Axel's shirt, hands moving from his shoulders slowly up the sides of his neck, fingers tentatively brushing over the skin as though he hadn't felt it a thousand times before. His gaze wavered, from Axel's eyes down over his cheekbones to thin lips and back up, and then suddenly his hands were on Axel's shoulders once more and he was pushing himself back away from his lover. The motion was violent, and Axel had lost his grip on Roxas before he even had a chance to realize it was coming. Roxas wound up just sitting there in front of Axel, leaning back on his arms and glaring at him.

"I don't know the half of it, huh?" he said lowly. Axel had lowered his head to rub experimentally at the back of it where he'd hit the closet door, but now his eyes came back up to Roxas's, at first a little surprised but then angry again.

"Are you gonna try to misinterpret everything I say now?" he asked bitterly. "You didn't think through accusing me of changing – because I haven't fucking changed, Roxas, and you know it. So I'm gonna tell 

you right now that if you're gonna accuse me of anything else, you'd better fucking know what you're doing."

Roxas opened his mouth to counter that, to point out that Axel could hardly expect to come in here and admit to murder and expect Roxas to carefully sort out his thoughts before responding, but he managed to restrain himself. His hands balled into fists as he gritted his teeth, and he took as deep a breath as he could manage while residual sobs were still periodically wracking his body. His eyes slid shut while he forced himself to think, made himself go over it all one more time.

Finally he took a deep breath, forcing his voice to calm down as he said, "This has changed you, Axel. No one can do what you did and come out the same on the other side. But you're still the same person. You're still a _good_ person. And I couldn't fall out of love with you over this even if I wanted to."

Axel's entire body seemed to relax at that; the stress was still there, maybe some of the anger, but he no longer felt to Roxas like he was on the verge of just snapping. He closed his eyes, and they just sat there, Roxas kneeling between Axel's legs and both of them looking quite spent. "I never wanted things to end up like this," Axel murmured at last. "Don't think this is easy for me. I know how you feel, because I'm feeling it too, probably worse."

At first Roxas bristled at that, but before he could go anywhere with that indignant feeling he reminded himself that he was hearing about this, but Axel had had to _do_ it. He was entitled to his stronger feelings. He lowered his head and said, "I know. I'm still mad at you, but I understand."

A snort, and Axel said, "Fair enough. And you still don't know the half of it."

Looking up and furrowing his eyebrows, Roxas gave a sort of irritated flailing gesture that he'd picked up from Axel a long time ago and exclaimed, "Well, tell me the rest of it, then!"

It almost seemed like Axel wanted to laugh at that, but he didn't. He just curled up a little subconsciously, looking down and fiddling with one of his nails. He didn't speak for a moment, seemingly lost in thought – probably trying to remember where he'd left off. Right when Roxas was about to remind him, he took a deep breath and said, "All right, well… fuck. The files I took from Zex, it was all in there about your relocation. But it just said that you'd been _decommissioned_, and I didn't know for sure what that meant until I came here and saw that you were practically unguarded.

"I figured I'd have to fight my way in to see you, maybe have to die to do it, but obviously I didn't. And then I knew that you didn't have your powers anymore, because there is no fucking _way_ they'd leave you sitting here like this if you still had them, even if they wanted us to get you back to track us down. They'd never take that risk; we're too good at hiding."

Roxas's eyes widened and he swallowed heavily. "I don't have…?" Axel grimaced and looked up at him, waving a hand in frustration that appeared to be directed at Roxas, but which Roxas instinctively knew wasn't.

"You've tried to use them, haven't you? And it didn't work, did it? It's like you forgot how to ride a bike or something. I mean, I'm only guessing here, but—"

"Yes," Roxas murmured. Axel closed his mouth and looked down once more, sighing through his nose. It almost seemed as though he'd been hoping for a different answer, but of course he'd known that he wasn't going to get it.

"So I've had to make excuses to come and see you since then," he said quietly. "Lousy ones; they think I'm depressed because my partners are both gone, so I guess they kinda figured it was normal for me to act weird all the time and go out to wander aimlessly all night once in a while. And I did more digging, but it was harder on my own. This is gonna sound so fucking James Bond, but I seduced this guy from the Defense Department."

Later on, Roxas would look back on his reaction to this as completely ridiculous; he'd just found out that the man he loved had directly or indirectly killed at least one person, probably two, people that they'd known and worked closely with, and all because of him, and he'd broken down and now sloppily pieced himself back together because he just didn't have the _time_ to flip out thoroughly today. And yet what actually set him to physical nausea was the idea of being cheated on for reconnaissance purposes.

Axel must have seen how pale Roxas went and the way his hands suddenly balled into fists, because he immediately waved both hands in front of himself and added, "No, no, I just got him alone and then knocked him out and took his clothes and ID. I wouldn't do that, even if I didn't think you'd find out. I didn't even kiss him, just felt him up a little but I didn't enjoy it…" Roxas couldn't manage much more than a shell-shocked look, so Axel – who seemed now to be getting over his anger in the face of Roxas's hurt – took both of his hands. "Rox, I'd hurt others for you, but I'd never hurt _you_, believe that."

It was impossible not to do so. Roxas tightened his fingers around Axel's and took a deep breath before whispering, "All right."

Slender fingers tightened in response and Axel murmured, his voice becoming gentler toward Roxas with every word, "So I came to see you tonight, and Vexen followed me. He got suspicious, I guess, and I realized halfway here that he was following me. And I confronted him about it, and other things, and things got really bad, and… I did what I had to. I just—Rox, what's… what's wrong?"

Roxas realized that his eyes were beginning to fill with tears once more, and he had to take a deep breath to keep from devolving back into sobs as he said, "I'm sorry, Ax. I have no idea how I ended up separated from you, but it's gotta be at least partly my fault, and… fuck… I don't know what I did to screw this up, but I'm sorry."

"It's not your fault," Axel said quickly, shaking his head. "It wasn't even all _about_ you. I told you, Vexen deserved more than I gave him. I didn't ruin my life over you; _he_ ruined it _for_ me, almost did for you too." That surprised the sobs right out of Roxas; he lifted his head and drew one arm back to wipe at confused eyes with the heel of his hand.

"What are you talking about?"

"Don't you think it's a little odd that they would've tried to kill us if it turns out they had the ability to just undo our powers?"

Those words and that idea took a second to really sink into Roxas's mind and make a place for themselves, and another second to begin meshing with all the other thoughts and memories that lived there. And then he wanted to throw up even more. "Oh god. Oh _god_." The tears dried up in slow shock, and he forced a few breaths down into his lungs. After a moment he brought one hand up to tangle in his hair, tugging at it as though to remind himself that he was still there, still functioning.

"That would've been the last thing Vexen wanted," Axel said, taking that hand and squeezing it tightly. "You know he's spent all his free time sitting in his lab figuring out how the hell we work. All he's thought about is fucking with genes; he actually got down what they did to make us faster and stronger while you were gone, was trying out some shit with it. If they'd decommissioned him, he'd see it as having the greatest scientific breakthrough he's ever gonna be a part of taken away from him."

The words practically had to analyze themselves; Roxas's thought processes had slowed to a trickle. He found himself staring blankly at the line of Axel's collarbone where it was exposed by the cut of the stolen green t-shirt and was suddenly struck with the thought that he'd like to make a little incision there, crawl under Axel's skin, and curl up in him, forget about everything but the comforting pulse of the heart whose beat was more vital to him than his own. "So he fucking _lied_," he heard himself saying, his voice hard and neutral. "He took us with him. For his own protection, I suppose."

Axel sighed. "And Xemnas knew, which means Saïx knew. Xemnas is power-hungry, Saïx probably just liked the chaos, Zex and Lex obviously knew, probably went with it because they wouldn't betray Vexen. And I guess they could've justified it to themselves."

"How?" Roxas asked, voice going just slightly manic around the edges as his eyes refocused on the other man's face. "We just… Axel, we're _terrorists_ now, and for _what_? We've been fighting corruption that doesn't exist!"

That got something between a nod and a shake of Axel's head. "They didn't try to kill us. They did lie to us about the fact that they were going to take away our free will and ability to feel."

A hand came up to scrub at Roxas's face as he shook his head, trying to work all this out in his mind. He'd barely regained his old life and now the whole thing was being rearranged. What he'd spent two months believing had been a lie, and now what had actually happened had been a lie as well, and how the hell was he supposed to cope with this?

"Maybe we had a good cause to fight for," Axel continued as Roxas felt fingertips move from his back up to his hair to begin brushing through it. "But fuck that, I would've given up ideals to have a normal life with you."

Roxas looked over to meet Axel's eyes. "We weren't even together then."

"You think I would've just gone back to Chicago and forgotten about my best friend?" Axel asked incredulously. And then, because this was Axel and being kind of an idiot was like a reflex, he added, "Especially the best friend whose pants I'd've sold my grandmother's kidneys to get into."

Roxas sighed and glanced down at the hand resting in his lap. He didn't know what to say to that; all he knew was that at the beginning of this ordeal, he'd barely been legal and Axel hadn't even been old enough to drink, and now just over a year later Axel was a fugitive with nowhere to go and the only reason Roxas was any better off was that his brother had as much clout in government as some minor industrialized nations.

He didn't want to discuss it; he'd been avoiding it as long as he could because it wasn't something he wanted to think about. But now there was nothing else left to say. "They took me."

And as always, Axel understood him the way he understood Axel, because that immediately got a ragged sigh from the tired, badly beaten man folded up on the floor in front of him. It took a moment to get a response. "There must've been standing orders to get you if they found you, 'cause they fucking pounced the first chance they got. You remember that? It was the only time you and I ever ran into Sora. I was fucking pissed, we weren't even supposed to be out on that mission…"

Squeezing his eyes shut, Roxas clenched his teeth and finally just sighed. "No, I don't really remember," he murmured. "That's… that's foggy."

"Might be because of the blunt trauma. You had a pretty bad fall when they knocked you out." Axel reached up and rubbed at his eyes, suddenly looking like the exhaustion that was evident in his features was catching up with him. "I was supposed to be watching you. We were out with four of the others, and they all managed to watch out for their partners, but I was… I was fucking stupid. I was too busy trying to make sure I didn't hurt your brother, because you asked me not to and I was so worried about hurting you that I didn't realize what was happening until it was too late."

"Sora was there," Roxas said, his voice going as hard and dark as onyx. Axel grimaced but nodded.

"Yeah, he was," he admitted. "Xigbar and Demyx grabbed me and dragged me out of there as soon as they realized you were gone, and it's probably good that they did, because I was having a fucking stroke, and as soon as we were out I really lost it, just screaming and crying. It was pathetic. I'm pretty sure Dem and Xig knew after that, if they hadn't guessed already, but they never said anything to me or apparently anyone else about it. If Sora had seen that little breakdown he would've known I was gonna come for you and maybe I'd never have gotten to."

Roxas knew his expression must have darkened even more at that; he wasn't angry with Axel over the comment, but his lover seemed to realize that he was painting a rather cold portrait of his brother and hastily added, "I mean… Rox, he has your best interests at heart. He saw it as saving you; I can't blame him. He was taking you away from a shitty life."

"Fuck him," Roxas said flatly, and Axel's eyes widened. Roxas remembered telling Axel all about growing up with Sora, how happy they'd been, and how when their mother had died they'd been okay because they still had each other. How Sora had only barely been eighteen but had taken care of him anyway, just as well as their parents ever had, despite the fact that he was still out there being such a good person, being a hero – because that was what Sora did. He gave.

Not now. "He took everything from me. He took away my free will, and my memory, and you." Roxas could feel himself crumbling again as he spoke, and by the end of the sentence yet another irate sob was tearing past his throat and wracking his body as he curled in on himself, and then Axel's hands were on him, running up and down his arms comfortingly as he whispered gentle words.

Although he couldn't make heads or tails of what Axel was saying through the haze that had begun to overtake him, Roxas shook his head and countered the tone of his voice. "He took _you_ away from me, Ax! The others, fuck, I would've healed from those, but if you hadn't come here… oh god, I would've been missing you the rest of my life, and I wouldn't have even fucking known it!" He sobbed hard again, interrupting himself, and Axel tried to take the opening to say something, but Roxas choked out, "I would've got my free will back, and made new memories, but I would've gone on and settled for some fucking moron who's a real nice guy and who'll treat me real good and buy me a real nice life but who's not _you_!"

That seemed to stun Axel for a moment, but then suddenly his arms were tight around Roxas and Axel was nearly in his lap, if his body language was any indication in desperation to get Roxas as close as possible, and he was murmuring against his ear, "Calm down, Roxas. Just calm down, please. It's not… It's fine now, I'm here." He drew back a bit to look at Roxas, holding the younger boy's face between his hands and saying firmly, "He did what he did because he loves you, Rox."

"_You_ love me!" Roxas countered, as though that somehow negated the point. Axel closed his eyes and let out a slow sigh, and then he backed off and pushed himself up, and a moment later he was pulling Roxas to his feet.

"Come on. You need tissues and a glass of water and a few deep breaths."

He had to be practically carried into the bathroom, but Roxas did get tissues, and after that he got those few deep breaths as he leaned over the sink and concentrated on calming down a bit. Axel had wandered out into the rest of the apartment, and when Roxas came out into the living room, he was exiting the kitchen and practically forcing the glass of water he'd mentioned into Roxas's hands to complete the apparently prerequisite calming-down trifecta.

"Feeling better?" he asked as Roxas drained the glass.

"No." Axel gave a grim half-smile, and Roxas grabbed his hand and pulled him toward the couch, setting the empty glass down on the end table before tugging Axel down onto the sofa. "Hold me," he said, and although he was feeling unbelievably weak and vulnerable, the romance novel wilting heroine words came out as a firm order. Axel complied, and Roxas wrapped his arms around the taller man's waist and slung his legs over his lap. A long few minutes passed, and then Roxas murmured, "I'm coming with you."

There was no response, either verbal or physical, and when Roxas lifted his head slightly to look up at Axel, he realized that he'd passed out. Roxas would've laughed at that, but he wasn't in the mood and he didn't want to disturb his lover, not now that that pale, drawn face was actually looking more or less peaceful. So he just let his head rest against Axel's chest and concentrated on the gentle, rhythmic pulse thrumming away beneath layers of cotton and skin and muscle, and it was by far the most calming thing he'd experienced that day. It was slow and steady and it said that slowly and steadily, everything was going to be all right.


	5. Chapter 5

And then Roxas woke up with a gun pointed at him.

Well, not at _him_. At Axel, who was so close to him both physically and emotionally that it might as well have been trained on Roxas himself. He jumped as he realized that he was staring at Riku down the barrel of the Smith and Wesson he usually had in the holster under his left arm; Axel must've woken up a moment before Roxas, because he didn't start at all before saying, "Roxas, get off of me."

Roxas didn't budge. "Riku, what the fuck are you – put that thing down!"

"Get off of him," Riku replied flatly. Roxas had always made fun of his pending brother-in-law for how unintimidating he was, for the ponytail he wore his hair in and the feminine, nearly too-long bangs that he said made the older man look like some sort of pretentious supermodel. He'd always said that if he'd had breasts, Riku would've ended up leaving the FBI in order to turn around slap the agency with a stack of sexual harassment suits a foot thick. He'd called Riku "Sora's Government-Issue Action Heroine" more times than he could count.

And now he was realizing rather abruptly that when Riku was watching you over seven inches of black polymer with that fucking cold look in his aquamarine eyes, it didn't matter at all how slender his frame was or how long he spent brushing his hair every night. "Put that fucking gun down, Riku!" Roxas reiterated. He wondered where Sora was – he'd left with Riku, shouldn't he be here too?

The white-haired man shook his head slightly, but his eyes hadn't moved an inch off of Axel since he came in. "Axel McDonagh, number eight," he said coolly. "Kagutsuchi, wasn't it?" Sora probably would have had trouble naming all the _powers_ of the people in the Organization, much less who they were, off the top of his head. Riku could probably recount the life stories of each, and he was making sure Axel knew that. "Did you think the haircut would help? That the tattoos wouldn't give it away? I thought those idiots who picked you screened for stupidity."

"Nguyen, right?" Axel asked, the bland tone to his voice carrying an extremely tense undercurrent; Axel was flippant and reckless, but even he apparently knew deep down inside what it really meant to be on the business end of a handgun. "You're the one who's getting hitched to the Keyblade, aren't you? Well, geez, that makes you Rox's brother-in-law, and I'm in a long-term kind of love with Rox here, so that makes you and me like family, huh? Do you make a habit of pointing those things at your family?"

The part of Roxas that was most purely him, that couldn't be fazed by anything, that never changed no matter what the circumstances – that part of him wanted to snicker at Axel's words. But that part was not in charge right now. Riku had apparently been thrown slightly by the words; his face and posture stayed exactly the same, but his eyes flickered over to Roxas for a split second and then back to Axel.

"Cute," he said after a moment. "Really cute. So you're here to take him."

Roxas opened his mouth to spit some angry words at Riku over that, but Axel spoke first. "He's not something to be _taken_, hard as that may be for you to wrap your mind around."

"And his life isn't yours to ruin," Riku countered. Axel's expression darkened significantly at that, and he tried to push himself up off the couch despite Roxas's weight pinning him down, but Roxas physically shoved him back so that he could get up instead, keeping himself between Axel and Riku's handgun as he marched the few steps over to him. Riku certainly wasn't about to adjust his aim, but Roxas could see his finger slacken on the trigger. And when his gaze moved up to Riku's eyes, he could see cracks in that cold façade, and it took him by surprise to realize that on some level Riku really _cared_ about him.

It was probably a dumb thing to do, but Roxas reached up and grabbed Riku's wrist, and as soon as he had he found that he didn't know whether he wanted to push it away or keep it there, just to make sure it was pointed at himself instead of Axel. And they just stared at each other for a long moment, until another voice cut in.

"Riku, put that thing away."

All eyes in the room turned to the front door, which neither Roxas nor Axel had noticed had been left open by Riku when he came in. Sora was standing there, holding his backpack and a shopping bag, both of which he dropped unceremoniously to the floor as he took in the scene with a blank, hard look that was totally out of place on him. His right hand came up to push the door shut, and a moment later the Keyblade appeared in it. It was in a form Roxas had never seen before – not that that was particularly unusual, because he wasn't the sort of person who followed the stories in the paper about his brother that always ran pictures of him with its different forms. But it seemed that Sora hadn't seen it either; he looked down at the strange red and white, rather spiky weapon, and his expression registered surprise, then mild confusion.

The thought occurred to Roxas, inexplicably and stemming from nothing at all, that this Keyblade looked like it would've been practically useless against Axel. And Sora hadn't even let the accompanying armor manifest.

After a moment, Sora schooled his features again, looking back up at Riku and reiterating, "Put it away, Ri." Riku scowled at that, glanced over at Sora briefly, and finally lowered the gun to slip it back under his jacket. Sora just stood there staring mournfully at the two of them for a few moments, then over at Axel with nearly the same expression on his face. His blade was rather loose in his fingers and hung dully at his side as he took a few steps into the apartment. He didn't look like a hero; he looked like an unhappy boy with a mysterious weapon that had never asked permission to run his life. His eyes swept the room again and then stayed on Axel.

"You've changed," he said simply, emotionlessly.

"You remember?" Axel replied, his voice holding a lack of inquisitiveness and a mock flattered undercurrent.

"_I_ remember," Roxas cut in darkly. "All of it." Sora looked over at him in surprise followed quickly by comprehension. He opened his mouth to speak but then shut it again, pursing his lips and furrowing his eyebrows as he shrank back slightly.

"Sora, don't get like this," Riku said suddenly, his voice about as forceful as the other three in the room combined. "Don't go all soft. You've got a member of a terrorist cell sitting in your living room, so would you either hold that thing like you mean it or let me get my gun back out?"

"Riku, please, just…" Sora obviously had no idea how to cope with this. Everything he'd built around Roxas – everything he'd tried to do _for _him, the blond had to admit to himself – had just crumbled around him the moment he'd stepped through the front door. Roxas almost felt bad. Almost. Riku was silent long enough that Sora looked back to Axel. "It was you the other morning."

"It's been me for a while, babe," Axel said lightly. Roxas turned to look at him from the corner of narrowed eyes; Axel seemed to be getting significantly more comfortable with the situation now that he wasn't in any immediate physical danger. The shadow of that smirk of his was even returning.

"I see," Sora murmured. And Roxas suspected that he probably _did_ see; Sora was often a flake, flighty and spacey and on occasion barely able to put two and two together unless someone counted it out on their fingers right in front of him. But right now he sounded like he really did get it, like he'd read into the situation and put together the multiple facets of Axel's statement. Axel was a fast talker and Sora a half-listener, but for some reason at the moment it seemed to work.

"Sora," Riku said firmly. "Can this wait until we have him in custody?" Roxas had to admire the effect that Sora had on Riku; if his brother were any other person, Riku would've been swearing and yelling and probably on the verge of physical violence, but with Sora he was restrained and patient and so soft that he probably hated himself for it.

"If you think you're taking him into fucking custody, you're even dumber than you look," Roxas snapped. "I'm going with him and you never have to see either of us again if you don't want, but there is no way he's leaving this apartment with anyone but me."

Axel sounded touched when he murmured Roxas's name at that, and Sora sounded upset when he exclaimed it at the same time. But he and Axel both remained in the periphery of his brother's and his fiancé's attention.

"He's a fugitive, Roxas," Riku said darkly. "He's _wanted_. We pulled strings for you; don't ask us to do it for all your fucking friends, even the friends you're fucking."

Roxas was about to punch Riku for that, even though he knew Riku could beat him into a pulp with one hand behind his back and a broken ankle, but then he heard Axel get up and he turned around just in time to grab hold of his lover and prevent him from doing exactly the same thing he'd been planning himself. "Axel, please!"

"Fuck you, asshole," Axel snarled at Riku, though he was letting Roxas restrain him. "You wanna send me to prison, I'll _give_ you a fucking reason to send me to prison."

Riku took a couple of steps back at the proximity of the man who'd been made a human weapon. Roxas knew that he himself was the one keeping this situation from becoming _really_ ugly. Everyone in this room cared deeply about him – or at least cared deeply about someone who cared deeply about him – and the fact that all of them would go to lengths not to hurt Roxas directly or indirectly was going to damn well keep things civil. Roxas likewise knew that everyone else in the room was keenly aware of this same fact. But apparently Riku was now doubting Roxas's situational defusing power just a little.

Even Sora had tensed at that; the Keyblade had shifted when his hand tightened on it, and he looked just a little more ready to spring into action rather than just ready to break down and brood for three days straight. Roxas still had one hand on Axel's shoulder and the other closed around his fist, and he waited until the taller man looked down at him and calmed slightly before slowly letting go. He turned and looked darkly at Sora and then Riku.

"Like I was saying, Axel's leaving here, and I'm going with him," he said lowly. "You owe me. You took my life, and you're gonna damn well give it back."

"Roxas, we… that wasn't what I…"

"It's what you _did_, Sora!" Roxas exclaimed. Sora winced visibly, and finally guilt began to get the best of Roxas; Sora was the weakest he'd ever seen him, and even though it was his fault that they were in this situation, Roxas was the one breaking him.

"We can't just let him waltz out of here," Riku said. "He's a member of the Organization, Sora."

"Was!" Roxas snapped. "And so was I!"

"I had a little falling out with them," Axel added dryly. "There was a bit of a conflict of loyalties that I'm sure you can guess at."

"And we should trust you why?" Riku growled.

"Because I'm telling you to!" Roxas exclaimed.

"Because I handed you Loki," Axel said, ignoring Roxas's outburst. "I don't know if he's still alive, but I gave him to you so I could find Roxas."

"He's still alive," Sora said quietly.

Riku practically flailed a hand. "Sora, would you… you can't just… fuck!"

"Thanks for that," Axel said, giving Sora a little two-fingered salute; his voice actually held undertones of relief and gratitude. "You want info in return? I can give you some. One, four, five, six, and seven, those are the ones that know what happened the day we escaped; the rest of us, we had no idea, the others still don't. We were told the decommissioning was gonna involve a little more euthanization than it actually did. I'm sure you wondered why a sweet kid like Roxas ran off with a pack of nutjobs like us. There you go."

The lightbulb above Riku's head was practically visible. "You wanna walk?" he asked suddenly. "Tell us where the Organization is, then."

Axel's eyes narrowed, and it occurred to Roxas that he might actually do just that. "No," the blond said immediately. "No way. Axel doesn't owe you shit. _You_ owe _me_."

"_What_? Why the hell would you protect them?" Riku asked angrily.

"For the same reason I protected you and Sora for a year!" Roxas nearly yelled. He could see Sora out of the corner of his eye, moving closer to them and looking like he wanted to say something but wasn't sure if he should jump in. Riku spoke again before he could make up his mind.

"That's not even remotely similar!"

"It damn well is!" Roxas shouted, fists clenching at his side. He knew with his size and big blue eyes, he generally looked like a petulant child when he got angry, but he didn't care. "You two are my family!" he said, indicating Riku and Sora. "And the Organization was my family! And you know what? The Organization lied to me and almost ruined my life, and you and Sora lied to me and almost ruined my life! Axel's the only one I have left who hasn't fucking lied to me, so fuck you both!"

Silence overtook the room. Even Riku appeared utterly speechless, and his eyes moved over to Sora worriedly as Roxas's suddenly guilty gaze did the same. Sora was staring at Roxas with wide eyes, in the next couple of seconds seeming closer and closer to tears, and then the Keyblade dissolved into nothing in his hand as he began to visibly tremble. "Roxas…" he murmured. "Rox… it was the only thing I could do for you... It was my job to stop you, and I couldn't do it…. How was I supposed to send my little brother to jail?"

Roxas was angry. He was so angry with everything and everyone – even, on a residual level, Axel – that he felt like he was being torn apart inside. But seeing Sora upset broke him, and he went over and pulled his brother into a tight hug, just holding him for a few seconds until Sora's arms came up to wrap around him too and he felt tears soaking into the shoulder of his t-shirt. "I'm not a kid anymore, Sora. I've made my own decisions, and you can't take care of me forever, moron."

"Idiot," Sora muttered in response, and Roxas couldn't help but smile just a bit at the names they'd been calling each other for over a decade now. "I can't just stop looking out for you. I know I screwed up, but… don't hate me, Roxas…."

The very idea garnered a snort from Roxas, too weary to really be derisive. "I don't hate you, Sora. But you did screw up."

"I'll fix it," Sora said quietly, his voice low and slightly cracked. "I'll come up with a way to fix it…"

Pulling away and looking Sora in the eyes, Roxas shook his head. "There's no way to fix it, Sora."

"But there has to be—"

"There's not always a way to fix things, Sora! You can't help everyone all the time!" Roxas spoke the words with a bite to his voice, and apparently it hit home for Sora. His face fell utterly, not so much hurt as just defeated, and Sora _hated_ defeat. His eyes shifted slightly, looking to Riku over Roxas's shoulder. That was what Sora did when he couldn't do the hero shit on his own – he looked to Riku. Not because Riku was his official government connection, or because Riku was more clearheaded and analytical than Sora could ever hope to be, or because he didn't have anyone else. Just because he was Riku.

Roxas had always found that ridiculous; he looked at Sora as someone who could handle himself, and if he couldn't handle himself he had Roxas and his best friend Kairi even if she was working two states away now, and he didn't need some pompous jerk who was too cold and too serious and too completely different from himself to tell him what to do.

Except that he did, and Roxas got that now, because it was the same with him and Axel. He'd never looked to Axel because they were assigned to work together, or because Axel was a little older and a little more grounded in the real world, or even because Axel held all of his memories and was the only one who could give them back. He needed him because he was Axel.

This thought ran through Roxas's mind in a split second, and although he didn't turn to look at Riku himself, instead just staring at the empty floor between himself and Sora, he didn't feel that spike of resentment and irritation that he usually did when Sora became helpless and asked Riku for assistance. He didn't mind Riku's voice at all when it came.

"I can't do anything, Sora," he said. His voice was different now, quieter, apologetic. Genuine. "You know we used up all our favors on Roxas, and the only reason we pulled it off is that he's your brother. That was his connection." There was a pause, and Roxas turned to find Riku pursing his lips and looking over at Axel. The apology went unspoken as he said, "You've got no strings attached for me to pull, McDonagh. You've got a lower middle class family on the south side of Chicago and two years toward an English degree. I've got enough clearance at the agency to read the sort of shit they keep in bomb-proof briefcases, and _that_ wouldn't be enough to get me out of a position like yours. Being Sora's brother's boyfriend is not gonna cut it, and they _know_ what you've done personally. All those bombs with all accelerant and no fuses? Clever, but obvious."

Axel shook his head anyway, running a hand through his hair, causing it to stick up and revealing some of the red roots underneath the black. "The bombs are about the half of it," he said. "Don't ask about the rest. Suffice it to say I'm on the Organization's shit list. The _deep_ shit list. I have to leave the country."

Sora's immediate response surprised Roxas. Quiet and resigned, he murmured, "Where are you taking my brother?"

Silence was all he received in return for a long moment. Roxas looked up at Axel expectantly, and Axel finally met his eyes. Without breaking that contact he replied to Sora, "How would you feel about paying postage to China?"

If it were possible for anything to brighten Roxas's mood even a little, Axel had just done it. That look the taller man was giving him said that he hadn't just picked a country at random, or even picked it because it was a communist country they could easily disappear in. They'd gotten a little drunk six months ago, Roxas remembered, and he'd mentioned to Axel this ridiculous idea that he had, this stupid fucking aspiration of climbing this mountain in China he'd read about on the internet. It was the sort of thing he normally wouldn't have talked about at all; having that kind of vague, silly dream in the Organization was even dumber than it had been as a brokeass college student.

"Axel…" he murmured.

Axel managed a lopsided grin. "Still wanna go to Hua Shan?" He'd remembered the name of the fucking mountain. Roxas wanted to cry. Again.

There was no way Sora and Riku had any idea quite what they were talking about. Roxas had never mentioned wanting to climb _any_ mountain, much less one halfway around the world, to anyone but Axel. But Sora didn't seem to care. "We'll get you to China then," he said. "Can you travel?"

"We've been getting through airport security for a year," Axel pointed out.

"So you have viable documentation," Riku said immediately. "But we're going to be looking for Roxas when they realize that his tracking chip is gone. It's impossible to get those things out without deactivating them. As a government, we put up a pretty good façade of being completely incompetent, but we're not _stupid_." Riku turned and headed over to the hooks on the wall by the door, already pulling off his tie and suit coat to hang them unceremoniously in place of his well-worn motorcycle jacket, the one he wore even when he wasn't using his motorcycle.

He shrugged it on and pulled the tie out of his hair to brush it down over his shoulders. Sora seemed to have caught onto the fact that apparently he and Riku were going somewhere and went over to stand by him as Riku gave Roxas and Axel a long look. "I'm doing this for Sora, and because this is mostly my fault anyway," the white-haired man said at last. "As far as anyone is going to know, you two left of your own accord without my knowledge or help, or Sora's for that matter. But I'm going to be demoted over this at the very least, because I'm supposed to be keeping tabs on Roxas, and I've been lax, and now I'll have lost him. That's fine; that's the price I pay. But I'm telling you because I know you think I don't like you, Roxas. And, well…"

He trailed off, then looked away and shrugged slightly as he opened the front door and left. Sora pursed his lips and hesitated a moment before saying, "We've got things we have to get for you before you leave. We'll be back. Get some rest or something, all right?"

The door clicked shut again behind Sora as he left, and the apartment was silent. And then Axel said, "There's no chance that they're gonna…?"

"No."

--

Axel was fast asleep in Roxas's bed when Sora and Riku returned, still trying to make up for the exhaustion he'd racked up before coming there. Sora shook Roxas out of the doze he'd dropped into next to him and pulled his brother out of bed and into the bathroom.

Neither Roxas nor Sora had ever dyed hair before, their own or anyone else's. Roxas's nap and the distance from the conversation earlier seemed to have worked wonders on their moods, because they managed to laugh and tease each other the same way they always had as they got the dyes all over the bathroom and hoped that it wouldn't permanently stain the white marble or tile. It wasn't until Roxas had to sit down and wait for the dye to take hold and Sora was pulling off the rubber gloves he'd been working in that a pang of pain really hit the blond as he realized exactly how much he was going to miss his brother, that he really was rarely going to ever be able to see him again.

Sora turned the soiled gloves inside out as he pulled them off delicately and tossed them into the basket next to the sink, then leaned against the counter and looked at Roxas. His expression sobered a bit as he reached over and grabbed a tissue to wipe some excess dye off of Roxas's forehead before it stained, 

and he murmured, "I'm sorry about all of this, Roxas. I know it's my fault that we… that we kidnapped you…" He sounded like he was definitely having trouble saying that word. Roxas knew that he was having trouble hearing it.

"Sora, don't say—"

"No," Sora interrupted, in the voice people rarely heard that would allow no argument. "That's what it was. And I apologize for it, I really do, Rox. It's not enough, but that's all I can say. And I'm sorry I put you in that situation in the first place. It was stupid of me to get you into the Deus Project. It was really stupid."

"No, it wasn't stupid, that was—"

"They tried to take your free will and your emotions, Rox. I knew it was a weapons program, me and Riku both, and we just… we didn't think through it enough. We should've seen that it was a bad idea to get you involved. And my reasons were so shortsighted. I just thought… Rox, you've always had to rely on me and put up with all the crap in my life. And I've always thought… maybe you resented the fact that I take care of you. I'm not Mom; I'm just your brother. I figured maybe you hated that I pay for your school and everything, even though it makes me feel so good to be able to do it. I know you've always been independent, and I thought maybe it was hard on you leaving all that to me."

"It is hard," Roxas admitted quietly. Sora lowered his eyes but just nodded.

"And the whole… the whole Keyblade thing," he added quietly, though it still seemed relatively loud in the tile room. "It must've sucked, seeing me change out of nowhere for no good reason. And especially since Mom died, having to live with me while I go out and save the world or whatever at all hours and get stuck on the front page of the papers and get engaged to an FBI agent you don't even like."

"Sora, I do li—"

"No, you don't," Sora interrupted. "I know you and Riku don't get along. You're too similar."

Part of Roxas bristled at that, but that part was inconsequential. "You think I've ever been jealous of you?" he asked.

A deep breath and Sora admitted, "I wondered."

Roxas shook his head and punched Sora on the shoulder to get him to look up. "Moron. I don't wanna go out and risk my life for people I don't know and probably wouldn't like if I did, and I don't wanna come home exhausted and hurt, and I don't want the fucking press taking pictures of me and using me to make money and trying to find out who I am to dissect my personal life. I hate talking about your job and I'm always irritable about it because I hate the fact that someone I love _has_ to put up with all that."

It always felt silly, Roxas felt, when he got sentimental because Sora was looking at him with those ridiculously big blue eyes like some kind of vulnerable puppy. Not because he didn't care about his brother, but because he knew he had the exact same eyes, that he and Sora were eerily similar. Sora looked touched by those words, and then sad again. "So you see why my reasons were so stupid."

"Shut up, Sora," Roxas said, though his voice was entirely inoffensive. "You're being stupid about it _now_. I'm glad you put me in the program; I met Axel, didn't I? Things suck, this situation really blows, but I wouldn't give him up for anything. So stop berating yourself."

Sora bobbed his head to the side ambivalently about that. He took a deep breath and looked back up at Roxas as he said, "He really loves you, you know. I was there the day we took you."

"I know you were."

"I saw his expression when we did it, when he realized. I don't think I've ever seen that sort of fear on anyone before, and you know how many scared people I deal with." Sora paused and sighed before adding, "In the back of my mind I suspected what you meant to him, just because of the look on his face. But it was too late to go back on it. And I always kind of half expected that he'd show up again. I guess I'm glad he did. If you are."

"I am," Roxas murmured quietly, staring down at his hands in thought. And then he nudged Sora again and said more loudly, "Get the gloves from the other thing of dye. My scalp fucking itches like hell."

Sora grinned and shoved Roxas back. "Stop your bitching, idiot."

--

An hour later, Roxas turned on the light in his room and padded over to his bed to sit on the edge of the mattress and shake Axel awake. It proved difficult. When they'd fallen asleep together back with the Organization, Axel would've been awake at the slightest noise, unable to fully rest because he was so tense at the thought – however unlikely – of someone barging in and catching them. But apparently he felt comfortable and safe in Roxas's apartment right now, because he didn't even make a noise, just shifted slightly and batted Roxas's hand away.

Rolling his eyes, Roxas climbed onto the mattress and straddled Axel, then clasped his hand tight over the other man's mouth as he leaned down to whisper in his ear. As soon as he felt Axel stir and try to push up against his hand, he murmured, "I'm not going to hurt you, even if you scream."

Axel stilled for a moment, and then Roxas could feel a forceful breath pressing against his palm. He took the hand away and let Axel laugh as he sat up, but as soon as Axel got a good look at him, the laughter stopped. "What the—Roxas…?"

"I can't leave the country looking like myself, can I?" Roxas asked lightly, almost smugly, and all Axel could do was shake his head dumbly. He'd have been offended by that reaction, but Roxas knew that he didn't look a thing like himself anymore. Sora had made him a brunette, a pretty chestnut color, and Riku had procured him color contacts, a vibrant hazel, and given him a crash course in putting them in.

Xaldin had once offhandedly called Roxas an Aryan poster boy, and Roxas had laughed because that was just the sort of thing that Xaldin didn't mean anything by but used as part of his gruff, sarcastic exterior. But it was true, Roxas was defined by his blond hair and blue eyes, that stupid beauty cliché, and the absence of those after almost twenty years rendered him nearly unrecognizable even in the mirror. Axel sat up and studied his face blankly for a long moment, then reached up and tugged at the streaks that ran through Roxas's bangs, the one remaining blond and the other a vibrant red the color of Axel's usual hair.

A genuine smile curved his lips at Sora's cheesy, emo-looking idea, but then it split into a lascivious grin and he said, "You know, this is a great opportunity. It's gonna be like I'm fucking a whole new person!"

Roxas was silent. He stared right at Axel, demanding eye contact with his hard glare, and Axel's grin didn't falter; it never did. Finally he punched Axel hard on the arm and got off of him, trying to hide his laughter as he marched for the door. He couldn't quash it, and he was still giggling as he turned around in the doorway and said, "Get your ass out of bed, we've got shit to do if we're gonna make the last bus north tonight."

They left carrying backpacks with their necessities and a good chunk of Roxas's college fund stuffed into the bottom, and suitcases that were more so they didn't look suspect going overseas than because they were particularly worried about bringing a lot of clothes with them. Right before they went, Riku boiled a Swiss Army knife and Roxas squeezed Axel's hand to near numbness as his soon-to-be brother-in-law sliced along the bone in his wrist and dug out the tracking chip implanted there. He bandaged it and Roxas pulled a checkered armband on over the white gauze, and then he grabbed Riku in a tight, swift hug.

Riku looked utterly shell-shocked. It was one of the only times Roxas had ever even touched him voluntarily, and probably the first real sign of any sort of affection he'd gotten from him. And half a second later Roxas was giving Sora a much longer hug, and ten seconds after that he and Axel were gone, and as soon as the door was shut Roxas could hear Sora sobbing.

--

On the third day after leaving, Axel brought Roxas to the international terminal at Montréal-Trudeau and dropped him off with his luggage. Roxas was not happy; he was tired because it was barely past seven and he had gotten to their hotel exceedingly late last night, well after Axel – and then Axel had decided to seduce him. Twice. So they'd gotten four hours of sleep after two restless days, and now 

Roxas was feeling it. And on top of that, he was having to get on a plane by himself, because they'd been traveling separately as a matter of policy, after the first bus taking separate ones and renting separate cars to cross the border at separate posts. It wasn't fun, but they couldn't be too careful, they kept telling themselves.

When Axel kissed Roxas goodbye, strangers stopped and stared, and neither of them paid that any mind. "My flight's tonight at a quarter to seven," Axel whispered as he leaned in to brush his lips over Roxas's ear in a way that was only borderline appropriate in public. "I'll be on British Airways, all right? I've got a layover in London, and you know how that shit goes, so just don't stop until you get to Xian. I put the name of that place we're going in your pocket."

"The place on the North Peak, right?" Roxas murmured.

"That's it. Don't chicken out on the way up or some shit, all right?"

"Shut the fuck up, Axel, this is _my_ dream I'm following."

"And I'm following you," Axel replied, kissing Roxas again and handing him his bag. "Get going. I'll see you in a few days, babe."

He was mistaken. That was the last time Roxas saw the man he loved before he died.


	6. Chapter 6

He was able to piece together what happened afterwards from the story in the New York Times; the clarity of the images, of what he was able to put between the lines, was the most painful thing he'd ever experienced, but that didn't come until after the initial panic attack, the one where he ended up hyperventilating on the floor of an internet café in Shaanxi Province, surrounded by concerned locals who wanted to know in various degrees of comprehensible English if he needed a doctor.

He didn't. Any competent doctor would've just told him that he needed rest, that he needed to go to sleep and never wake up.

Eight thirty in the morning the day he'd left. One member of the terrorist group known as the Organization had been spotted at the Montréal airport. He'd been recognized from a photo that had been delivered anonymously to American authorities the day before.

Roxas could see Saïx dropping an envelope off with the FBI, grinning that feral grin of his the entire time. He could see Axel hanging around the terminal until Roxas's plane was supposed to take off, to make sure nothing went wrong.

They'd recognized him right away, one of the American agents involved had said. They had no jurisdiction, but there had been swift negotiations in what was considered by the government an emergency situation, and FBI agents had been placed with Canadian authorities after an initial tip from a border guard after that photo of Axel was sent out to them.

It had been too late to stop them from crossing, Roxas realized, but not too late to try to stop them from leaving the country.

The distinctive tattoos, the same agent said in the same quote, had made identification that much easier. It was a mystery why he hadn't thought to cover them.

Roxas realized that Axel had been spotted on purpose; he must have recognized the Feds when he was there the way _all_ of the members of the Organization could spot them a mile away. He could see Axel panicking, realizing that Roxas might be in trouble. He could see Axel quickly wiping the makeup off his cheeks with his sleeve, sure that that was the only way he'd be recognized. And he could see Axel walking right by them, entirely on purpose, glancing over at them from the corner of emerald eyes to make sure that they were looking.

And he'd run, the article said.

Running wasn't as stupid as it sounded, Roxas knew. The Organization did not run the way normal people ran, just like they didn't lift the same amount as normal people or react as slowly as normal people. Running was probably a halfway decent idea.

But he was shot outside the terminal. When they approached he was balled up on the ground, breathing raggedly and glaring daggers at them. "Stop," he'd said when they were getting close, and they had, because they wanted him alive if possible, but if he was alive he was still dangerous.

Roxas could understand why Axel had done what he did, because in his head he could hear his lover's voice explaining it to him. _I wasn't going to get away. I was going to either die, or survive and be locked up for the rest of my life._ He could hear himself screaming at Axel that he was selfish, that he should've lived for Roxas's sake, because this was going to kill him too. And he could hear Axel replying, _I never would have seen you again. You'd want me to live like that?_

And then Axel had blown himself up. Outside the Montréal airport he'd fucking blown himself up. He'd left several agents badly burned but in stable condition, and that was that. That was Axel's legacy. Purposely irritating to the very end, his last words had been, "Watch this."

Roxas couldn't even bring himself to hate Axel for leaving him like this. He hated everything else, hated it as best he could. But mostly he was just numb. He stayed where he'd arranged to meet his lover, and he refused to let go. The people who ran the guesthouse on top of the North Peak couldn't figure out why he'd been there for more than a week, going out each day to stare at the same breathtaking views and coming back each night, barely breathing a word. In fact, they frequently tried to subtly hint that maybe it was time for him to leave, to go home – presumably back to America, where maybe he should look into mental help.

They didn't say that, of course. They didn't kick him out, either, because he made them let him stay by paying them a lot of money to have the smallest room in the hostel to himself. They had other guests, and Roxas made everyone uncomfortable with the air of despondency he seemed to permanently dwell in, but the owners weren't crazy enough to turn down cash. He paid them so much they didn't even make him change his currency; they just took the American dollars and said that it was no problem, no problem at all, they'd have it exchanged themselves.

Roxas ate terribly. The most he could manage was plain white rice, which was fortunately easily accessible but which unfortunately still couldn't stand up to the nausea that periodically overtook him. He was already beginning to lose weight, and he hardly had any extra weight to lose in the first place.

Roxas functioned terribly. He couldn't stand being around anyone for more than a few minutes. He was unable to get himself to do a thing besides either lie in bed staring at the ceiling or go out onto the mountain to stare at the landscape, always unseeing. He couldn't seem to hold a thought for more than ten seconds at the time – except if it was about Axel, and all thoughts about Axel led back to that same incomprehensible fact that he would never see him again.

Roxas slept terribly. He would lie down in bed and be unable to fall asleep. It would always come eventually, though sometimes only every other night, because his body became so exhausted it really had absolutely no choice. When he would finally succeed, it was terrible sleep, frequently interrupted. 

He made it to REM a few times and woke up with nightmares worse than any he'd ever imagined before. He was pale and gaunt, with dark rings around his eyes constantly. He overheard one Australian couple asking a staff member if the tiny American boy was sick or even dying. He didn't even have it in him to laugh.

He did think about dying. There were all sorts of places to jump here, all of them easily accessible. He couldn't do it, though; he couldn't let his brother read about yet another death in the paper. He'd probably do it when the pain really hit, when it became too much. He'd die when he simply couldn't live anymore; he owed that much to himself, maybe. At least he owed it to Sora. He'd hang on as long as he could.

He thought about writing to Sora and Riku and telling them he'd made it and that he was okay. Except that he wasn't okay, so he didn't write.

--

Sora had worried about Roxas, and Riku had worried about Sora. It had been bad the first couple days. When Riku had been gone and Sora had been home, he hadn't eaten; the best Riku had been able do was make him dinner in the evening and get him to stomach as much as he could. And he couldn't sleep, so Riku had gotten up in the middle of the night and sat on him and forced him to lie on his stomach and put up with a massage until he'd had no choice but to relax enough to drift off.

The Keyblade had been called out once; someone had robbed a bank. It had taken him a half hour to clear that situation up. The rest of the time that Riku had seen him he spent staring at a wall, or out the window, or into a half-drunk glass of water.

Trying to figure out how to deal with a morose fiancé had been hard for Riku; usually he was the sulky, or at least overly-serious one, and Sora was the ray of sunshine that came home from doing someone else's job for them simply because he did it more efficiently and was still able to have that grin on his face and that bounce in his step. Of course Riku was too smart and far too close to Sora to think that inside, the brunette was some sort of happy machine powered by the hopes and dreams of all the little children; he'd seen that exterior crack. It had been absent more and more frequently for weeks – weeks, Riku realized, in which Roxas had been seeing Axel and regaining his memories. Sora hadn't really known what was going on, but he had good instincts like that, and even Riku in his minimal interactions with Roxas had known that something was up.

It had been difficult for Riku not to worry about Roxas and even Axel as well, for their own sake as well as Sora's. He was a human being with human compassion, no matter what Roxas or many of his coworkers thought. Sora, on the other hand, had been driving himself mad, but he seemed to at least partially believe Riku when he said that it was going to be fine.

Riku was one of the first to know that it wasn't going to be fine. His job was on unsteady ground at the moment, but there hadn't been time to start an inquiry just yet, so right now he was on something of probation. But he still found out about Axel just as soon as anyone else at the bureau, because he was the one officially charged with the task of going home and telling Sora. The past couple days he was wondering more and more if somehow he'd unknowingly, accidentally been such an awful person that he'd earned his way into his own personal hell.

Sora was staring out the window when Riku arrived home. He'd turned the armchair in the living room toward the plate glass balcony doors to do so, and he had a mug of tea clutched tightly in his hands. It was full, and it wasn't steaming; he'd been sitting there with it, not drinking, for quite a while. The tea had been made with the intention of helping Sora to relax a bit, but he hadn't even been able to relax enough to drink it.

After a few moments of just watching his lover with pursed lips and the concerned look he'd been wearing almost constantly for the past three days, Riku went over and knelt down in front of him, gently taking the mug from Sora's hands and setting it aside on the oak floor, far enough away and close enough to the balcony door that for the moment it wouldn't be knocked over. Sora looked down at him, waiting for him to say whatever it was he obviously had to.

"I don't know how to say this," Riku mumbled. It was the same thing he'd said right before one of the very best moments of Sora's life thus far, when he'd asked to marry him. But it was also the same thing he'd said right before one of the very worst moments of Sora's life thus far, when he'd found out that Roxas had run out on the Deus Project, permanently disabling someone and becoming a wanted criminal in the process. His stomach twisted in on itself; he was pretty sure he wasn't about to be proposed to again.

Riku reached up to massage his temples with both hands, squeezing his eyes shut and taking a deep breath. Then he seemed to rethink that and reached out to grab one of Sora's hands, squeezing it tightly in preemptive comfort. All of this only served to make Sora even more tense, and he was getting ready to tell Riku just to blurt it out when Riku did just that.

"Axel is dead."

Sora had been breathing out, and now that exhalation just kept going until his lungs were almost painfully empty, and then he drew in a sharp, hard breath that hurt just as much as the lack of air had. Riku heard that, felt the way Sora's hand went slack and then tightened in his own, and knew that his lover was probably struggling over what to say first, not what to say at all. He ducked his head slightly, trying to hide behind his bangs the way he had when he was younger and was about to get yelled at and probably grounded for some transgression. This was a thousand times worse, even though he hadn't done anything wrong and wasn't in any sort of trouble.

It was true that a hundred questions were crowding his mind, trying to get out first, but finally Sora breathed, "Fuck. _Fuck_. Tell me Roxas… Riku, is Rox… oh god…"

Shaking his head frantically, Riku said immediately, "No, Sora, he's fine, as far as I know he's fine; we haven't seen him, they've still got no clue where he is. They weren't together."

"Why not?!"

Riku sighed slightly; he should've expected that Sora wouldn't be thinking quite straight. "I told them to travel separately, remember?"

Sora nodded, brain still playing catch-up with itself after having ground completely to a stop as he tried to convince himself that everything that Riku had just said was both true and okay. And that was when it hit him that _Axel_ was _dead_. The man who'd looked like his world was ending when he lost Roxas, who'd risked his freedom and life to track Roxas down, whom Roxas had given up everything for, he was _gone_.

Both the fact that that man had died and the fact that Roxas was going to have to deal with the loss of everything he had left really hit him at once, like a punch in the gut that left him feeling dizzyingly nauseous. And it only got worse as his mind worked backwards in the next few moments, to the fact that he'd let them leave like that without doing more to help, to the fact that he'd had Roxas kidnapped, to the fact that he'd gotten Roxas into Deus in the first place. He was supposed to _help_ people; he'd spent the past decade of his life doing exactly that. How had he fucked up his own brother's life so badly?

"Fuck," he said, the word a simple statement. He pushed himself out of his chair all at once and stumbled into the bathroom. Riku hesitated a moment until he realized where Sora was going and then ran after him, sitting behind him and brushing his hair back from his forehead as he found that Sora hadn't even eaten enough in the past day or so to throw anything back up.

After a minute, Sora just slumped back onto the floor, the worst of the nausea abating. He sat back against the opposite wall of the small bathroom and buried his face in his hands, trying to get something of a grip back on himself, physically or mentally, preferably both. He could feel tears burning the backs of his eyes, threatening to spill over, but he drew in a deep, shuddering breath and concentrated on not losing it even worse. When Riku reached over to touch his hair again, he shook his head quickly and moved away. Riku frowned, but he understood.

"What the hell happened?" Sora asked after a moment. He fixed his eyes on the floor in front of him, concentrating on the almost imperceptible little imperfections in the way the tile had been laid.

Riku was quiet for a moment before he took a deep breath and moved from a crouching to a sitting position. "They caught him in Montréal, at the airport, alone. As far as they could tell he didn't even have any luggage with him."

Sora looked up at that. "If they were traveling separately, if he was there with no luggage, maybe that means—"

"I don't know, Sora," Riku said immediately. It wasn't that he thought Sora was wrong; it was just that he hated to talk in possibilities. He found it counterproductive, and Sora knew that. Riku continued, "He was shot, outside the airport. It wasn't fatal, or at least not instantaneously, but… he blew himself up, Sora. Instead of being arrested. No one was killed, just burned badly, but the Canadians are irate; they're refusing to cooperate anymore, and I don't—"

"He _what_? Riku, did you say he fucking _killed himself_?"

A wince; Riku had known this was coming. He'd hoped that by continuing to talk maybe he'd avoid Sora flipping out, but apparently not. "Sora…"

"That _idiot_! That stupid fucking _moron_, what was he thinking?! Didn't he know what that would do to Roxas? Roxas is out there somewhere, _alone_, Riku, and either he knows about this and he's having a nervous breakdown or he doesn't know about it and he has no idea where Axel is or what happened to him and—"

"Sora, this is going to press."

Stopping short, Sora just stared at Riku for a long moment, his expression one of utter disbelief. "But the other one, Loki, they—"

"This was in Canada, and in public, not here on government property. It's probably breaking news right now. They had me haul ass home to tell you before you heard about it on TV. You're supposed to be the first to know about this stuff and they thought it'd make us look really bad if you got the information from someone else."

The tears were still barely being held back, but now as much from anger as pain, and Sora's face was still getting redder and he was beginning to tremble. "That stupid… stupid fucking… nn, god, what the hell was he thinking? I'd kill him if he hadn't done it himself!"

Riku's jaw dropped. In three years of knowing Sora, that was the only time he'd heard him say anything of that sort. "Sora, I know this is bad, this is _really_ bad, but you've _gotta_ be able to understand even a _little_ what Axel—"

"No! I don't want to understand! There's no excuse; did he think there were any circumstances where Roxas would rather have him dead than alive?!" Sora exclaimed, shaking his head violently and looking at Riku like the very idea of having any sort of sympathy for Axel was now unthinkable. Riku knew very well that as soon as the initial shock wore off and he had a little time to think about it, Sora would be 

grieving for Axel for the man's own sake as well as Roxas's. Sora's heart was too big for his own good, always had been. The fact that he was reacting this way surprised Riku, but he understood where it was coming from now that it was happening.

Sora blamed himself for repeatedly letting Roxas down, that much was obvious. The fact that Axel had done the same even after knowing Sora's mistakes was infuriating. Axel was supposed to be the one who _didn't_ fuck Roxas over, who tried to stop other people from doing so, at least in Sora's mind. His nails were digging into his palms painfully, his hands were clenched so tight, and he had to squeeze his eyes shut and concentrate on breathing for the time being.

"Sora, you have to calm down," Riku murmured. "Be grateful that Roxas wasn't involved in this."

The expression that Sora looked up to give him made Riku visibly wince. "Not _directly_ involved," he corrected quietly.

"We've got to get a hold of him, Riku. He's alone, he needs somebody. I have to—fuck, I have to find him!"

"You know that's not possible," Riku said bluntly, though his voice was gentle. " Who knows where Roxas is or what he's doing? Sora, he's strong, and he can take care of himself, no matter what. He'll get in contact with us when he's ready."

"And when do you suppose that'll be?" Sora asked, a hint of bitterness entering his voice. He knew as well as Riku that it wasn't going to be right away.

"A while," Riku said, looking down and letting his bangs fall into his face again. "Assume that he's gonna have to take a little time to heal. If I lost you, I wouldn't want to talk to anyone about it. I wouldn't discuss it with anybody, and I definitely wouldn't write anyone a letter about anything. I wouldn't put up with any more human contact than absolutely necessary."

"What _would_ you do if you lost me, Riku?"

Riku didn't vocalize an answer to that, because he already knew what Sora was thinking. _I'd die_.

It was obvious that Sora was collecting himself to yell again, not at Riku, never at Riku, just at the world in general, but then there was a knock, muffled by having to travel through most of the apartment but still more than loud enough to be heard. Sora didn't say anything, just looking back down at the floor with an intensity that clearly said that he was not going to answer it and that he didn't care whether or not Riku did either.

Even though he was reluctant to leave Sora just sitting in the bathroom like that, Riku got up and went to answer the door. He hadn't had the faintest idea who to expect there, except maybe people from his 

work, but he still wasn't surprised to find Naminé standing outside. Roxas hadn't spoken to her before leaving, not so much as a call or an email.

Riku had asked him several times if he wanted to go see his oldest friend one more time before the tracking chip came out, but he'd flat-out refused. He'd write her a letter when he got where he was going, he'd said. If she wanted to see him anymore she could come see him the same way Sora and Riku would have to – a long way away and once in a long while. Sora had to live with his guilt and Riku had to live with the same, he'd said. This hadn't been Naminé's fault, but she'd complied, she'd lied to him and invented memories, given him a life he hadn't lived. She wasn't going to get a goodbye, and that was the price she paid.

It had been difficult not to notice, Riku mused, that unlike everything else in the universe, the more pressure Roxas was under the colder he became.

"Where is he?" Naminé asked, her voice nearly as hard and chilly as Roxas's had been when he refused to go see her. "He wasn't in school, and I just heard something about some other boy from the Organization blowing himself up. _Where is he, Riku_?"

Riku had been right; he _was_ in hell.

--

Roxas didn't cry for the first nine days, and he didn't know why. He vaguely figured that he'd been through too much, that he was just incapable of processing everything anymore. He wondered if he'd ever deal with it enough for it to feel real. It would have to eventually, wouldn't it?

It felt real the next day. Roxas woke up sobbing midway through the morning, and when his brain worked its way back to conscious cognition, he grabbed his pillow and held it tight over his face to muffle the scream that he let out. He screamed into that pillow until his throat felt like it had been slashed to pieces, and then he sobbed again until his chest ached and there were no more tears. He was exhausted still, and crying exhausted him even more, and he fell back into that restless sleep until he awoke hours later and cried himself out once again. He couldn't sleep after that. He walked around the summit of the mountain, and then he sat and stared numbly at the sunset when it came, and halfway through it that pain was suddenly back sharper than ever, and he practically ran back to the guesthouse and threw himself down on the bed and screamed some more, painfully, until his voice gave out altogether.

When he didn't need it to stifle himself anymore, he let the pillow drop into his lap and just stared at it until his eyes flitted up to where it usually lay. There was a white envelope sitting on the mattress there, the one that held the contents of the spot under his pillow prior to this trip. He'd pulled it out of his bag on the second day in China when trying to find some clean clothes, and at that point he'd nearly thrown it away.

His first instinct had been to open it, of course, but that idea was quickly cast aside and instead he thought about tearing it apart, just ripping it to pieces and dropping the pieces into the wastebasket in the corner. He still considered doing so almost daily, but always with the conclusion that it wouldn't be enough. No matter how small the pieces were when he finished with it, they'd never be tiny enough that when he dropped them into the trash he wouldn't run the risk of catching a glimpse of the red of Axel's hair or the green of his eyes, or even the sharp curves of his handwriting.

He wanted more than anything right now to forget all of that. He wanted his amnesia again, he wanted to go back to America and turn himself in and then beg for the government-employed doctors that had cut off his memories in the first place to do it again, to give back those lies that Sora and Riku and Naminé had told him and let him forget that Axel had ever existed, to lock him up for the rest of his life but just please have a little mercy in exchange for going willingly.

When Axel had been alive, the thought of never knowing that the other man even existed had seemed the worst fate possible to Roxas. Now that he was dead, Roxas fantasized about forgetting Axel, losing all memory of red hair and green eyes and burn scars and those hips and that stupid dance they did and the obnoxious laughter at inappropriate times. It would be best if he simply went back to thinking that love was some stupid crush on the high school basketball team captain and not one phrase, three words, eight letters traced across his back in the middle of the night.

That was never going to happen; Axel had already defined the rest of Roxas's life. But keeping those pictures of him wasn't going to help. He couldn't tear them up and throw them away, but he could burn them; if Axel was still around, sitting over his shoulder watching him, he'd laugh long and hard at that. The thought was too painful. He could throw them off the mountain, but then maybe someone would find them, and Roxas didn't want anyone else butting in on his memories, looking at those photos and wondering about the boys in them and never having to know or acknowledge their reality. So he left them under the pillow, the envelope still never having been opened. He couldn't get rid of Axel even if he tried.

And that was the tenth day. He fell asleep when it was dark, at a reasonable time for once, and the nightmares were only kept away by the fact that he couldn't stay fully unconscious long enough to dream. But he didn't come back to full awareness, bad sleep didn't become no sleep, until after midnight.

When Roxas woke up, his eyes flew open but he couldn't move and couldn't speak, much less scream. At first he thought it was another nightmare, or maybe sleep paralysis, but then his eyes focused and even in the dark he could clearly see and feel that for the second time in his life Axel was sitting on him unexpectedly in the dead of night with a hand pressed over his mouth. There was a chilly draft through the room. The window was open.

"Don't scream," Axel said, and it _was_ Axel, it was his voice. "It's just me. Told you I'd meet you here. Sorry it took so long."

Roxas's eyes were wide and his breathing was rapidly getting faster and harder, but Axel seemed to trust that he wouldn't flip out entirely and pulled his hand away. Roxas took a deep breath in preparation to start a series of words and questions and profanities that probably wouldn't make any sense whatsoever, even to himself, but before he could use it Axel's hands were tightly gripping the sides of his head and he was being kissed in a way he couldn't ever remember being kissed, because they'd just been through something that had never colored any of their kisses before like the past week and a half now did. And Axel tasted exactly the same as always.

As soon as their lips parted, Roxas recovered enough of his senses to grab hold of Axel like he was never going to let go, one hand balling in the back of his thick jacket and the other slipping into his hair to hold him close. He became aware of the fact that he was crying only by the feel of hot tears running down his cheeks and cooling in the night air, and he felt almost like he was listening to someone else say, "Axel, oh my god, _Ax_, how did… how can you… oh fuck, Axel, if this turns out to be another dream…"

Axel shook his head fervently, lifting one hand to begin wiping away the tears from Roxas's cheeks. "Would I be blond in your dreams, Rox?" he asked, and it wasn't entirely meant to be a joke.

Roxas froze, and then quickly reached over and flipped on the little lamp next to his bed. The light wasn't very bright and was subdued by the shade over it, but now he could see Axel himself instead of just his familiar shadowy presence cast into little relief by the moonlight. He _was_ blond, a sandy blond that didn't suit him like the black had, much less his red. Roxas never would have dreamt that up; his subconscious wouldn't have thought about the fact that if Axel had somehow survived and actually gotten to China, he would've had to change his appearance again to get out of Canada.

He just blinked up at Axel's face smiling down at him, and he started sobbing like he had earlier, his throat still hoarse from the rest of the day spent crying. Axel's face fell entirely and his eyes darted back and forth across Roxas's features as though searching for a way to make this better, but seconds later the sobs turned to laughter. This didn't seem to reassure Axel much, because the laughs were manic, the sort of thing you'd get if you told a joke to someone in a straitjacket, and they were as hoarse as the sobs had been.

And then just as suddenly the laughter stopped; from the look on his face, Axel was probably wondering whether Roxas had lost it totally, if he'd finally succeeded in driving someone completely over the edge and it had ironically been the one person he never wanted to make crazy. Even as he held Axel close to him with the hand on the back of his neck, Roxas's other hand pushed under his coat to almost frantically feel at his chest and stomach through his t-shirt. He couldn't find anything unusual.

"Ax, you weren't…"

"I faked it. I faked all of it. I'm sorry you had to believe it; they didn't report that there was no body. I think they figured I just destroyed myself completely, but they weren't gonna admit that…"

And suddenly the second half of what had been going through Roxas's head over and over for the past ten days entirely changed itself. He could see Axel realizing that he wasn't going to make it out of there, and that even if he did he was going to be actively hunted. He could see the man who usually came off as such a massive idiot putting his real intelligence to work and continually modifying a basic plan to fit a changing situation until he heard that gunshot behind him and pitched forward onto the ground of his own accord. He could see him curled up apparently in pain but really to cover the fact that there was no bullet wound in his chest, and he could easily see him creating so much chaos that he was able to just disappear. He could see exactly what had been going through Axel's head at the time.

"I was worried sick about you," Axel murmured. "I thought maybe once you heard you'd… you would…" He hesitated for a moment and then said, "You'd forget about coming here, and… and then I would've had to find you through your brother and it could've taken forever, and…" He trailed off and sighed, slumping down against Roxas and nuzzling into his neck. "I'm so fucking glad you waited for me."

Everything up to that point had been something of a haze, but that penetrated it right away. "Axel, you shithead!" Roxas exclaimed, pushing him up enough to give him an angry look. "I wasn't waiting for you; I was _mourning_ you! I stayed here because I couldn't even pick up the pieces of my heart enough to leave! I stayed here because there was no point in going somewhere else just to stare at nothing and resent my own existence all day! And you think I stayed here to _wait_ for you?!"

Axel swallowed heavily, casting his eyes away and pursing his lips. "I… that wasn't quite what I meant," he muttered. He was blushing now and he buried his face against Roxas's shoulder, muffling his own voice as he said, "You want the truth, I was afraid you'd think you'd fucked your life up beyond repair and kill yourself."

Roxas's chest tightened at the thought; he'd come close a few times, close to just climbing out somewhere and jumping. That he was going to die soon had become an accepted fact in his life in the past week and a half, that the numbness was going to end, the pain was going to start, and he was going to sink lower and lower until he couldn't go on. It wasn't that he _hadn't_ thought he'd fucked his life up beyond repair; it was that he considered himself strong enough to hold out for a little while. At least long enough to get up the will to write a letter to Sora.

Aloud he simply snorted and said, "Hn, arrogant as always."

When Axel lifted his head, Roxas found out just how poorly he could hide his emotions when under duress; his expression was more or less devastated, and he began to pull away. Roxas grabbed him tightly, yanking him back down, and said, managing to smile even though the residual tears, "I was planning on it. It didn't feel right giving up right away, so I decided to wait. But it was on my agenda for the near future."

Axel stared at him for a very long moment and then said, voice quiet, "Seriously? Roxas, you would've killed yourself over me?"

Silence as Roxas just blinked at Axel; it was hard to even stay emotionally wrecked over the past ten days followed suddenly by finding a dead man in his bed when Axel was here being so fucking _Axel_. "That's what I just said."

"You stupid little shit!" Axel exclaimed. "As far as you knew I fucking killed myself to make sure you weren't caught and you would've gone and done that?!"

Honestly, Roxas couldn't think of an answer to that. He tried to work up even enough fake irritation to continue this ridiculous circular argument. "Axel, I… shit, I can't even pretend to be mad at you. So just shut the hell up and console me, will you?"

They were noisy. First thing in the morning, the management kicked them out, and they didn't care.

_Full stop._

All right, so. Obviously if you made it this far you at least didn't hate this. I feel now that I should point a few things out that a lot of people have mentioned with this. Firstly, the possessive form of Roxas - Roxas' is acceptable in modern grammar, but Roxas's is the traditional and preferred way and is, in my opinion, more clear and elegant. For a more thorough discussion of possessive forms, I usually point to the Apostrophe Protection Society www (dot) apostrophe (dot) fsnet (dot) co (dot) uk.

Thankfully no one has ever pointed out my spliced commas and run-on sentences. I know the rules (I'm like Rick Astley that way), and that's a stylistic choice. I think an acceptable one. In writing fiction I like to play to the pauses I want, not the pauses I should have.

Secondly, I discussed this at the beginning of the story at my LiveJournal and gauged reactions - which were generally quite positive, thankfully - and decided not to discuss it at the beginning here, just for the hell of it. But yes, this was intended to be an American comic book style AU, with all those American comic book cliches, heavily influenced by the Marvel Universe; Sora ended up a lot like Witchblade, but that was purely coincidental due to the canon nature of the Keyblade. But I do acknowledge the parallel.

I didn't start writing this thinking that a comic book AU was a good idea; I started writing thinking it was a terrible idea. But that was what I liked about it; I'd never seen anyone do it and I wanted to find out if I could pull it off. I think I did pretty all right.


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